


Wings to Fly

by bad_peppermint



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Gen, Kid Fic, Mental Health Issues, Non-Graphic Violence, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 80,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2177478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bad_peppermint/pseuds/bad_peppermint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur had no idea what he was thinking, adopting a child. Especially a crazy one. Arthur had enough issues on his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic. Five years in the making, growing into the longest thing I've ever written (certainly the longest thing I've ever _finished_. It's too long for the AO3. Novel-length, baby, that's what's up. Special thanks to [silence_since_silence](http://archiveofourown.org/users/silence_since_silence) for the last minute beta save. You're a rockstar, hun.
> 
> Due to the subject matter, you might find some parallels to the film adaptation of _Martian Child_. I had the idea for this fic back before I saw the movie, but wrote the majority of it after, so there might be similarities. Those are unintended.
> 
> Yes, it's het. It's not graphic. Arthur insisted on being straight.
> 
> Also, kidfic but not fluffy.
> 
> The lovely and incredibly talented [argentsleeper](http://argentsleeper.livejournal.com/) created the art for this bigbang. It's imbedded in the story, but you should also check out her artpost [here](http://adorablepuppyassassin.tumblr.com/post/95433787833/after-camlann-art-wings-to-fly-by-bad-peppermint) and let her know how much you love it (because you do, trust me).
> 
> Also thanks to the mods over at [After Camlann](http://aftercamlann.livejournal.com/) for making this bigbang happen. It's been a rough ride, but it was worth it. ♥

> ~~Good parents give their children roots and wings. Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what's been taught them. \-- Jonas Salk~~
> 
> Yeah, whatever.

 

At times like these, Arthur wanted to curse his mother for dying while she was still young and beautiful.

It lent the whole thing a certain sense of tragedy it wouldn’t have had otherwise, of course, and he was enough of a corporate shark to appreciate the genius marketing opportunities that came with figure-heading a beautiful young woman and her beautifully orphaned son for a children’s charity.

On the other hand, Arthur was a corporate shark-ish type who, at twenty-eight, didn’t really care to figurehead a children’s charity. He supported it, with all his heart and most of his income, he invested whatever time he didn’t spend at work into it, and _he had never agreed to be its spokesperson_. And yet he constantly found himself shaking hands and kissing cheeks and goofing around for toddlers, and by God, he would put out an advertisement for some other attractive orphan as soon as he got back to the office.

He didn’t even like children all that much.

Up on the podium, Lady Helen, a middle-aged woman in sensible business dress tapped her microphone. “We’ll get to the food in a minute, I promise,” she said, to a little bit of polite tittering. “But first, as a thank you, the children of the Ygraine Pendragon Battersea Home would like to perform a small show.”

Arthur didn't groan or roll his eyes. He was the charity's figurehead, however involuntarily, and he refused to undermine it that publically. However, that didn't stop him from slipping covertly away, smiling politely on his way through the small crowd assembled around him. Up on the stage, a group of freshly scrubbed children around primary school age gathered around Lady Helen and a man with a sweater vest and a truly impressive crown of hair. The newly arrived gentleman produced a tuning fork and lifted his hands, and Arthur escaped from the crowd just as the kids started singing.

He breathed a sigh of relief. He was shielded from the stage by guests in expensive suits watching little children sing - badly - like it was the greatest thing they'd heard all year, _and_ he was near the food. Clearly, fate was courting him today.

With a bit of a chuckle at himself, Arthur wandered over to the dining area. Tall tables with long white tablecloths held glass trays overflowing with food. They were still unavailable to the guests, but surely it wouldn't hurt if Arthur were to take a preemptive look at the buffet.

Upon closer inspection, it looked a lot nicer than it actually was. It was fairly fancily done, he had to admit, but Arthur had grown up upper-class and he could differentiate between cut glass and pressed. The food looked good, at least, and Arthur reached for what looked like a blue cheese tartlet. It was his sacred duty, after all, to make sure they were actually edible, and not just a pretty-looking assault on the senses.

Behind him, the singing grew a little more off-key. Arthur had enough manners not to scoff, but he still pinched his nose and muttered something unflattering under his breath.

“You don’t have to be such a prat, you know,” somebody said.

Arthur looked around. He could have sworn that was a child’s voice insulting him, but the only children he could spot were all up front near the stage. In fact, the only people in his vicinity were guests staring at the performing kids. They were all middle-aged and older, and the closest one of them was several feet away.

“I don’t think someone insulting strangers really has any ground to stand on in terms of prattishness,” Arthur said, quietly.

“Oh, please,” came the reply.

Arthur glanced left and right again, and then, slowly, bent down towards the table. The “The truth doesn’t make me a prat, you dollophead,” that came next was a little louder, and with a bit of a grin, Arthur squatted down and lifted the tablecloth with one hand.

He’d expected a street urchin, maybe, a grimy, grubby little boy dressed in rags with a cap on his head. Instead, the kid was clean and fairly well dressed, even if his clothes were obviously hand-me-downs. He’d pulled his knees up to his chest but still managed to look defiant while he was doing it.

Arthur had to admit he was impressed. “You have all the manners of a toadstool,” he told the boy. “How did you know I was here?”

The boy nodded at Arthur’s leather shoes. “I saw you,” he said. Arthur couldn’t tell from his voice if it was intended to be accusing or just amused. “You’re supposed to be watching the stage, you know.”

Arthur nodded slowly. “And aren’t you supposed to be on stage?”

The kid looked away and shrugged, that ‘I refuse to acknowledge I know exactly what you’re talking about’ shrug that Arthur didn’t usually see in pre-teens. “I snuck away,” he said. He turned exasperated eyes on Arthur. “I’m too old for that sh- that.”

“And how old is too old?” Arthur shifted his weight when his knees began to twinge.

“Seven. Allegedly.” The kid gave him a shrewd look, and Arthur had to admit he didn’t seem seven. He acted more like a grumpy old man in a child’s body.

He didn’t point out that some of the kids he’d seen onstage were certainly older than eight. He’d encountered the boy’s type before, the kind that was trouble before they even got started, and no amount of well-meaning chiding from strangers had ever amounted to anything. He had a stubborn set to his jaw that Arthur had learned to watch out for, not only in the children he encountered through the charity but also in his own family: his father, his sister Morgana, and most likely himself.

“I’m Arthur,” he said instead. He’d been introduced already, at the start of this whole affair, but he didn’t think it would hurt.

The boy nodded slowly. “I’m Merlin,” he said. He pointed at the tartlet still in Arthur’s hand. “Are you not going to eat that?”

 

‘Merlin’ was halfway through his second sweet, talking through a mouth full of crumbs and sticky fingers, when the tablecloth was abruptly yanked from Arthur’s hand.

“Get up,” Morgana hissed at him, and then turned back to the stage with a gracious smile.

Arthur rose just in time to burst into enthusiastic applause when the children on stage took their clumsy bows. “Thanks,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, and his sister shook her head.

“What were you doing, looking for dropped change?” She gave him a hard look and, without pausing for breath, turned to an older man standing close by and said, sweet as honey, “It’s lovely how talented these children are, isn’t it? When I was that age, no one in my class could even carry a tune.”

 

Arthur didn’t see the boy after that. He kept half an eye out for him, but he couldn’t look for him when he was called on stage to say some prettily worded, inspirational tripe, or when – as was usual with these things – two tiny children came to present him with a bouquet of flowers, and by the time open season was finally declared on the food and the buffet table was swarmed with half-starved do-gooders, the kid had apparently made the wise choice and beat it.

“What is with you today?” Morgana asked him out of the corner of her mouth, concealing the question with a cheese cube held daintily to her lips. “Did you lose a cuff link or something?”

Somehow, Arthur didn’t think a half-pint like Merlin would appreciate being compared to a cuff link. He wondered how the kid might react, though, and lost himself in imagining the indignant sputtering until the heel of Morgana’s stiletto descended warningly on his toes.

“It’s fine,” he said.

She didn’t look convinced, of course she didn't, but at that moment a pig-tailed little girl came over to invite Arthur to play a round of hopscotch with them, and for the first time in his life, Arthur found himself actually eager to accept.

 

Towards sunset, after most of the kids - yawning and bleary-eyed - had been ushered out, even Arthur was given leave to go. He shook hands with deCatha and leaned in to kiss Lady Helen on both cheeks. He didn’t look for the boy as he said his goodbyes, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t disappointed not to see him.

 

The first Tuesday of every month, Arthur had a lunch meeting with the executive board of the Ygraine Pendragon Children’s Foundation: his father, the founder and mostly retired; his sister in an eye-candy capacity (she'd once confessed to only attending the foundation’s events for the free food and ego-stroking); Alator deCatha, who was really the brains of the operation; Iseldir, the head of human resources and PR; and Isolde, the extremely pretty and extremely married fundraising and finance manager.

With the Battersea meeting just a few days past, their meeting that week consisted mostly of congratulating themselves and each other. There were also logistics - names, numbers, paperwork, and the inevitable laundry list of things that had been forgotten or delayed. There was a flurry of papers to sign and improvements to nod off, and the ever-dreaded information round-up for the shelter that could really be sent in the mail but, for the sake of good relationships, someone really ought to deliver personally.

Iseldir tapped the thick folder expectantly on the table.

Usually, Arthur studiously looked down at his notes along with the rest of them until someone caved to the silent pressure and volunteered. He glanced down at the papers in front of him, feeling Morgana at his side do the same. _Mandatory counselling session for recent arrivals_ , the top page said, listed inconspicuously amongst the services the Battersea home offered, and Arthur remembered a flash of dark hair, an unimpressed smile.

With a sigh, Arthur held out his hand. “I’ll take it.”

Morgana frowned at him, but in the general mood of ‘Thank God it’s not me,’ nobody bothered to ask him any questions.

 

The Battersea group home, Arthur found, was a lot less dreadful when it wasn’t decked out to wow the suits and gowns. Instead of tasteful decorations, there were children’s toys scattered everywhere. The previously oppressively tidy children themselves were yelling and shrieking like any other kid would, and Lady Helen herself looked a lot more at ease in designer jeans and a cashmere cardigan when she welcomed him into her office.

“Mr. Pendragon,” she said, waving him into a seat. “It’s a pleasure to see you again so soon.”

Arthur replied in kind, and for a while they actually managed to talk shop. Once their conversation devolved into friendly chitchat, however, he couldn’t help fidgeting a little bit, trying not to peer around the office like someone might be hiding behind the shelving. He didn’t think Lady Helen would let anyone eavesdrop on them, but he did know at least one little darling at this establishment who was quite adept at getting away from her.

Lady Helen tilted her head. “Is there something on your mind?”

“Um.” Arthur, to his horror, felt heat rising in his cheeks. “It’s, um. Actually.” He took a breath, gathered himself and said, slipping back into his most charming persona, “When I was here last, I encountered a young boy – about so high, dark hair. Said his name was Merlin. He seemed a bit – lost, I suppose, and I was wondering if you could tell me if he’s doing alright?”

“All our children are a bit lost, Mr. Pendragon,” Lady Helen said, but with a hint of self-deprecation that suggested that Arthur already knew that.

Which he did.

The woman tapped her neat nails lightly against the surface of her desk. “Merlin isn’t the most carefree child, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, but…” She narrowed her eyes at Arthur thoughtfully. “I’m sure we could arrange for you to go up and see him, if you’d like?”

“Now?”

She smiled, despite the way she’d caught him off-guard. Or maybe because of it. He wouldn’t put it past her.

“What better time, seeing as you’re already here?”

She had ulterior motives, Arthur suspected, but as he couldn’t quite read them on her face, he settled for a gracious smile. “What better time, indeed.”

 

Lady Helen walked with the quiet dignity of the impeccably raised. Arthur knew she was old money and that running the children’s home was her idea of a delightful little hobby, but there was knowing, and then there was watching a woman stride through a squabbling crush of schoolchildren like a queen. Arthur followed after her, well aware that when he passed by, there was a hush of silence followed by frantic whispering. It reminded him of secondary school, of swaggering down the halls with his rugby mates, although he suspected these children were looking less for a love interest to swoon over and more for a parent, and the idea that some people might look at him and consider his ability to be their father was just altogether too horrifying to contemplate.

In front, Lady Helen swept up some stairs, her cardigan billowing after her like a gown, and then waited for him on the landing while he huffed his way after her. She wasn’t even out of breath.

“This is the boys’ floor,” she explained. She looked like she might offer him a handkerchief, actually, and Arthur quickly produced his own to dab at his forehead. No wonder all the children looked like they were starving waifs, if just getting to their bedrooms required more energy than Arthur spent at a visit to the gym.

Come to think of it, hadn’t Arthur made some kind of New Year’s resolution to go at least once a week?

Well, too late now. Arthur tucked his handkerchief away and offered Lady Helen a beatific smile.

She indicated the hallway with a nod. There were doors leading off on either side, most with a hand-drawn sign with two names and a bit of the London skyline sketched underneath. A couple of the doors were bare; Arthur let his gaze trail over them, remembering vaguely what she’d said at the charity event about not quite being at full capacity at the moment. None of the signs said ‘Merlin,’ though, and he turned to give his companion a helpless look.

"Right here," Lady Helen said, smiling, when he cast her a helpless look. She knocked on one of the doors and, after there was some sort of noise from inside, opened the door.

"Merlin?" she asked. "There's someone here to see you."

The noise was slightly more inviting this time, though not overly so. Indulgently, Lady Helen waved Arthur over and ushered him inside.

The room was smaller than Arthur had expected, though cosier. Two beds stood parallel to the hallway, separated by a large nightstand. Two chests of drawers were set against the wall opposite, and a handful of drawings and posters decorated the walls. It had a bit of hotel room flair, overall, both beds with identical covers in neutral beiges and browns, the walls a gentle cream. Arthur wouldn't have expected the room to be occupied by two little boys at all, had it not been for the mop of hair taking up space between the two beds.

The boy turned and, yes indeed, was the kid who had insulted Arthur so eloquently at the charity meeting. When he caught sight of Arthur, something swept over his face that Arthur didn't know how to read - something almost wistful, except it looked out of place and strange on such a little boy. Then he grinned and suddenly looked just like a regular kid again, except perhaps a little more goofier than his peers would, with too-large ears that a terrible haircut did nothing to hide and a wide gap between his incisors.

"Hello, Arthur," he said.

"Merlin." At Lady Helen's look, Arthur gently squeezed past her into the room and crouched down in the narrow space next to the boy. "How is everything?"

To his surprise and, admittedly, dismay, that made the kid frown. He muttered something under his breath that Arthur couldn't decipher and then turned his attention back to the toys he had apparently been occupied with before they interrupted him, two plastic knights about the size of Arthur's palms, one missing an arm.

Alarmed, Arthur cast a look at Lady Helen who, smiling serenely, was exactly no help at all.

"Fine," the kid growled eventually, into the silence. "Everything is just peachy."

"Right," Arthur said slowly. He hesitated. “Are you sure? I mean, um.” He waved his hand at the mostly bare walls, at the deserted hall outside. “Wouldn’t you rather be outside?”

Merlin scowled.

Arthur shifted uncomfortably, wondering if perhaps he hadn’t been supposed to ask that. It wasn’t like he cared, in the end, but he’d been the kind of kid to run out of the house at the first break in rain and he couldn’t imagine anybody voluntarily staying indoors when the weather was this nice. But maybe that was a sign, wasn’t it, that he couldn’t even imagine that, because how on Earth was he supposed to relate to a kid that wouldn’t even leave his room if Arthur was that shit at being empathetic, and clearly, this whole thing had been a terrible idea from the start.

The sound of Lady Helen clearing her throat behind him startled him out of his morose musings.

“Merlin, why don’t you tell Mr. Pendragon why you aren’t playing outside with the others?”

The boy shot her a look over Arthur’s shoulder. When Arthur turned to look, he caught the woman’s firm nod, and Merlin’s sigh.

“I skimped out on my chores,” the boy said, face settling into a grumpy scowl.

“Well,” Arthur said, at a loss. Was he supposed to reprimand him now? Encourage him for rising up against the patriarchy? Matriarchy?

Merlin stabbed one plastic knight in the chest with the other’s lance. “I don’t need a babysitter,” he growled, and Arthur was about to rise and beg off of what was clearly an incredibly ill-advised visit when Lady Helen scoffed.

“I can’t leave you alone with a stranger, Merlin, you know that.”

Merlin scowled fiercely at that.

“However,” she added, making Arthur turn his head again and wondering if he was going to have whiplash tomorrow, “if you promise to do your chores ahead of time next week, perhaps you and Mr. Pendragon can have a chat downstairs, and I’ll be minding my own business at the other end of the room.”

Merlin deliberated on that for a moment before he rose, with one plastic toy still in each hand. “Fine,” he said. “But no listening in.”

Lady Helen held up her hands in surrender. “No listening in, I promise.”

 

The boy appeared a bit happier once he’d gotten his way, with he and Arthur seated catty-corner at one end of the dining hall while Lady Helen looked through some files at the other, but that didn’t make him any more talkative. Instead, he carried on with his toys, having them go through battle after half-hearted battle while Arthur sat nearby, at a loss.

He startled when Merlin dropped the toys onto the table top without warning. “You’re here,” he said.

“I am,” Arthur said slowly.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be back.” The boy gave him a shrewd look, like Arthur had somehow – against all odds – managed to exceed his expectations, but he wasn’t yet sure whether to be happy about it or suspicious.

Well. Arthur had never been particularly good at dealing with people’s low expectations, so he pointed out, a little snidely, “You know, you were the one who disappeared at the event.”

“Ah, yes.” Merlin inclined his head, chagrined. “Well, I had to run for cover once Ms. Mora made it off the stage, and then Mike and Joseph – well, let’s say I had to hide for a bit, and then the hallways were blocked, and then _you’d_ left already, so I wouldn’t say it was entirely my fault.” He offered Arthur a beatific smile. “Would you?”

Arthur watched Merlin’s face for a moment. There was something odd about what he was saying, or perhaps how he was saying it – Arthur couldn’t really say what it was, but despite the innocent expression, he didn’t actually believe the boy.

“You’re a bit of a shifty fellow, aren’t you,” he said eventually.

Merlin slumped onto the table with a groan. “I got – overwhelmed,” he said, muffled.

Arthur looked down at the unfortunate bowl cut. Apparently whoever was responsible for hair in this place was still living in the nineties. “I suppose I can understand that,” he said. As Lady Helen had said, most children in group homes were just a little bit dysfunctional, and that someone like Merlin, who hid underneath buffet tables to get out of going on stage, was a bit more peculiar than most wasn’t such a stretch.

Merlin turned his head to stare at him, though he didn’t actually raise it. “Can you?” he said.

Arthur frowned. “Well. A little bit, yeah.”

The boy considered him for a moment. Finally, he pushed one of the soldiers at Arthur. “There,” he said. “You can hold that.”

 

The holding bit was apparently quite literal. Merlin kept his fingers wrapped tightly around his remaining toy but didn’t seem particularly interested in actually playing with it. Instead, he worried the table with it absently. Most of his attention was on Arthur instead.

Arthur held his toy soldier tight. He didn’t know what else to do.

Merlin blinked a few times. “Did you know King Arthur had several sons, according to legend? He killed one of them himself.”

Arthur blinked back at him. “I did not know that,” he said.

Merlin was a wealth of knowledge on King Arthur, apparently. King Arthur and Merlin, apparently, and once he’d started talking about them, it was hopeless trying to get a word in edgewise. Some of the things he said sounded a bit dodgy to Arthur – he was reasonably sure Queen Guinevere hadn’t been a maid at Camelot, and that Merlin had been quite a bit older than the king, but the kid sounded so steady, so _sure_ , that Arthur wouldn’t have contradicted him even if he’d known it for a fact.

Merlin talked for a long time. Every once in a while he glanced at Arthur through his lashes, like he was hoping for a particular reaction, but he never seemed to find what he was looking for and Arthur didn’t really know how to react, so he kept his face open and receptive and nodded encouragingly and hoped that was enough..

The boy was never disappointed enough to stop talking, in any case. Arthur wasn’t the best with kids and quickly found himself growing bored when confronted with their meandering stories, but with Merlin, he found himself intrigued in spite of himself. When Merlin talked, ancient myths about dead kings sounded _fun_.

Merlin eventually started coughing, and made Arthur talk about himself for a while. Arthur didn’t really know what aspects of his life might interest a kid; work (corporate) was out, as was his family (dysfunctional) and his hobbies (non-existent). After some frantic casting about, he dredged up a memory of starring as the Green Knight in a school play once, and talked about that. Merlin’s fascination was palpable, and Arthur became so absorbed in his own story, hamming it up for the boy’s benefit, that he actually started when Lady Helen cleared her throat behind them.

“I’m afraid it’s almost time for dinner.” She softened her words with a smile. “But perhaps you’d like to visit us again sometime?”

Arthur darted a helpless look at the boy. “Um, I, yeah,” he said. “If that would be alright.”

Lady Helen smiled at that; not quite patronizing enough to be condescending, but still enough to ruffle Arthur’s feathers a little.

“I’m sure Merlin would be quite pleased to see you. Isn’t that right, Merlin?”

Merlin pretended to think that over for a second. “No,” he finally said, with a mischievous grin. “No, I don’t think I would.”

Lady Helen smiled, pained, like she wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, but Arthur found himself grinning in return.

“Careful,” he said. “If you give me that sort of ammunition, I might come by every day just to get on your nerves.”

 

By the time spring rolled around, Arthur was on a first-name basis with every adult working at the group home, as well as most of the kids. He also knew more about Merlin than he’d ever suspected there was to know, with a steady stream of information coming his way either through Lady Helen or the workers or the boy himself. Apparently Merlin was tall for his age, which meant he was still pretty damn tiny. The way his ribs showed when he stretched wasn’t unusual either, not for active little boys his age. His eyesight was fine, his immune system more than capable of handling the constant strain of being around a baker’s dozen of snivelling, snotty children at any given moment, his psychological development quite good given the circumstances, his hand-eye-coordination abysmal. He didn’t mind playing sports most days even though he was terrible at them but watching them was akin to torture. He liked to complain unless something was actually really wrong with him. And he thought other children were nothing but a trial to live through until he was old enough to no longer officially count as one of them.

“It’s just that everybody expects me to act like them, too,” he’d burst out in exasperation on one of their walks, when Emily chased Mike and Jamil down the street with her pink jacket raised threateningly over her head. “I’m not going to run screeching down the street just because somebody’s wearing something pink.”

Privately, Arthur thought it might be good for the kid if he allowed himself to act even remotely close to his age some of the time, but, well. Arthur had to admit he’d probably also take Merlin less seriously if he suddenly developed a burning dislike for ‘girl colours.’

Still, he had made it his personal mission to educate Merlin on the fine art of having fun. Once he’d realized that really, Merlin had no particular hobbies or interests besides ‘no other kids,’ Arthur started coming by every week or two, schedule permitting, determined to get the boy to smile every once in a while. Morgana suspected he’d found a new – adult – playmate, and Arthur was fine with the ribbing as long as it kept her out of his hair.

With a wave to Marissa on his way across the front lawn, Arthur took the stairs two at a time. He nodded at Santos, the handyman, peeked into Lady Helen’s currently empty office, and turned towards the boys’ sleeping quarters just in time to duck out of the way of an overly enthusiastic redhead shooting down the hallway.

“Hi, Mr. Pendragon!” she yelled, flying by him.

“Hi, Liz,” Arthur called after her. “Be careful.”

“She won’t be,” Merlin said. He sat crouched halfway up the stairs, arms wrapped around his knees, and stared after his fellow housemate with raised brows. After a moment, he let his head fall back to look Arthur in the eye. “She’s got a crush on the mailman. I’m serious!”

In the face of his indignation, Arthur tried to swallow down his smirk. “I believe you,” he said. “But come on. She’s what, five?”

As expected, the kid grinned at that. Arthur still hadn’t really figured out why he didn’t get along with most of his housemates, just that there was something about Merlin that kept the other kids at bay.

“Eleven,” Merlin said. “Old enough to lust after thirty-somethings destined for beer guts, apparently.”

Oh, actually, Merlin’s inability to have friends his own age was probably due to him being a crotchety old man on the inside, but no matter.

“Charming,” Arthur said. He let his temple fall against the rough wallpaper. “You wanna go outside for a bit?”

“Are you going to make me exercise?”

Arthur rolled his eyes. He seized the kid by the scruff of his neck and hauled him to his feet, despite Merlin’s laughing protest. “Footie isn’t exercise, it’s _fun_ ,” he said.

“It’s torture,” Merlin corrected him. “The most vile, awful, horrible torture imaginable.”

“I’ll torture you,” Arthur said, laughing, and sprinted after the kid when he made a break for it.

 

Every other Sunday, everybody at the Shelter walked over to Battersea Park, armed with brollies and footballs and hula hoops and whatever the hell two dozen children and adults needed to entertain themselves for an afternoon. Arthur got himself invited along early on. He always joined in the matches because some of the older boys were actually really good, good enough for Arthur to have to exert himself if he wanted to beat them, and one of the younger girls had the sort of potential it’d be a crime not to foster.

Merlin rarely played. He didn’t seem to mind kicking a ball around if it was just him and Arthur in the backyard, but any sort of competitive sport was too hectic for him. Instead, he kept his watchful eyes on Arthur running up and down the field, bringing over water bottles if he thought Arthur might need them and maybe talking to some of the adults if they initiated a conversation, and otherwise not really interacting with anyone.

It made Arthur feel strangely guilty to be enjoying himself when the boy looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. He made a point of trying to include Merlin in the proceedings as much as he could, and although Lady Helen and the other minders looked on approvingly, it made him feel like a sham most of the time. He couldn’t help but be awkward about the whole thing – what did he know about children, really? He hadn’t been around any on a regular basis since he and Morgana were children themselves, and neither he nor she could really claim any sort of normal for themselves. He didn’t really know how to interact with Merlin, either, feeling strange and unsure around a kid he likely would have made fun of at that age, and it was tempting to stay with the soccer kids who loved sports and loved to impress people. Those were things Arthur understood – not little boys who didn’t play games and talked to adults more than anyone else their age.

Still, it was Merlin he was there for, and so, even after a particularly spectacular game when he wanted nothing more than to trade high-fives with the kids and carry the boy who scored the final goal around the pitch a couple of times, he detached from the group and returned to Merlin.

With a groan, Arthur dropped down onto the blanket next to the kid. "That," he said proudly, "was a good game." He was panting but he didn't really care. Some of those kids were _good_.

Merlin nodded, eyes hidden behind overly large sunglasses with a Disney logo on the side. "It looked like fun," he said. He probably couldn't have looked any less enthused if he'd tried.

Arthur grinned, half-hoping that would get the kid to smile as well. "Are you sure you don't want to play?"

"I don't mind watching," Merlin said after a while. "It reminds me of how things used to be."

"With your mum?"

Merlin's look was all disbelief. "No." He didn't explain, though, and Arthur was suddenly too annoyed to ask.

With effort, he reached out to ruffle Merlin’s hair. The boy allowed it for a moment before he drew away, which was more than he usually did

“Not everything’s the end of the world, Merlin,” he said, and Merlin wrinkled his nose disdainfully and turned away.

 

March brought unusually sunny weather. They spent far longer at the park than usual, Arthur laughing and yelling with the kids while they went through game after game, and it wasn’t until someone declared they were going home and Merlin took off like a shot that Arthur realized how much quieter than usual - _even_ quieter than usual – the kid had been.

He traded a sceptical look with Lily, one of the other minders, before he loped after him. Merlin was on a mission, but he was still a kid, and it took Arthur hardly any time at all to catch up with him.

Merlin didn’t say anything.

Arthur stayed at his side, ahead of the others, crossing Battersea Bridge Road and York Road before he got fed up with the oppressive silence. “You’re grumpy today.”

If anything, Merlin's scowl grew even fiercer. Arthur waited for a moment and, when no answer was forthcoming, prodded, "Wanna tell me why?"

After a moment's consideration, Merlin glanced over his shoulder at Mike and Niall, two of the rowdier boys in the group.

Arthur felt his hackles rise. "What'd they do?"

Merlin shook his head. "Laughed," was all he said, but Arthur had grown up with Morgana, after all, and knew just how hurtful a laugh could be.

He prodded Merlin's shoulder. "Why?" he asked, voice low.

“Because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut,” Merlin said bitterly. It sounded like something the victim of a mob hit might say, in words as well as tone, and that brought Arthur up short. Either he was going to have to bring up TV censorship with Lady Helen, or Merlin was the oldest seven-year-old Arthur had ever encountered.

“Shut about what?” he asked. If there’d been a murder around the home, he was going to have _words_ with Lady Helen.

Merlin turned his head to look up at Arthur, allowing Arthur to steer him around smaller obstacles like fire hydrants and street lights with a firm hand on his arm.

“You don’t remember me,” he finally said, sounding determined but resigned.

“No, I’m pretty sure I remember you,” Arthur said. He could feel his eyebrows climbing. “Unless you’ve magically turned into someone else in the last five minutes?”

Merlin gave him a shrewd look. “Not in the last five minutes, no.”

Arthur spread his hands, honestly befuddled. “What’s the problem, then?”

“You don’t get it,” Merlin muttered.

"Okay, so enlighten me." Arthur bit down on a smile. He had the feeling he ought to be taking Merlin and his obviously very grave little boy problems more seriously than he currently was, but honestly. How dramatic could a seven-year-old's troubles really be?

Merlin gave him a skeptical look.

Arthur nodded, encouraging smile firmly in place. He could do this - he could make this boy believe he was being taken seriously, no matter how badly he wanted to ruffle his hair and tell him to grow up first.

"Well." Merlin looked down at his hands. "I - I'm a wizard."

For a moment, Arthur was speechless. Then he bit down hard on his lower lips until his mouth stopped twitching. "Really?" he said.

Merlin shot him a suspicious look, but relaxed when Arthur kept his face impressively blank.

"Yes," he said.

"Like your namesake, then?"

The boy shook his head. "Not my namesake," he said. "I _am_ Merlin."

That did throw Arthur just the tiniest bit. "As in, the mythical adviser to King Arthur."

Merlin nodded again. "Yes," he said. "That's you."

Arthur blinked a couple of times. "What is?"

"King Arthur," Merlin said, some of his patience slipping away. "That's you."

Arthur turned an incredulous laugh into a cough. "I... Did not see that coming, I have to admit. I'm glad you told me, though. It's an important thing to know about oneself."

He'd overdone it a little bit, he realized, when Merlin's face turned suspicious one again. "Don't make fun of me," he said.

"I'm not." Arthur raised his hands in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture when Merlin glared at him. "Honestly. I appreciate you telling me - I know it must have been scary, working up the nerve."

“Not as scary as last time,” the boy admitted. “But magic was outlawed, then, so it was kind of a bigger deal, then, too.”

All in all, Arthur thought he did an admirable job of keeping his face straight. "You have magic?" he said.

Merlin looked up at him for a moment, searching Arthur's face for something he couldn't rightly identify, but eventually shook his head. "No," he said quietly. "Sometimes I think I feel it, but holding on to it is like..." He shrugged half-heartedly. "Like catching a shooting star, or something. You think you know where it is but it's gone before you can react."

"That sounds frustrating," Arthur said, and he meant it. It was also quite poetic, for such a little boy.

Merlin looked up at him again. Arthur was getting the distinct feeling that he wasn't reacting the way Merlin had figured he would, but he also didn't know what else to do.

"It is," Merlin said finally. "Especially because it used to always be there, and now it's not." The look he fixed Arthur with was extremely earnest. "I was very powerful."

Arthur nodded. "Everybody knows Merlin was the greatest wizard of all time," he said. "I don't doubt it."

Merlin’s brows furrowed. "You're taking this a lot better than I expected you to."

"I don't know whether to be flattered or offended," Arthur said.

Merlin bowed his head, flustered. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” he said. “I’ve just – not had good reactions, so far.”

Oh, Arthur could imagine. Kids Merlin’s age were amongst the most unforgiving creatures on the planet, and Merlin and his grand ideas of reincarnation, as well as his apparent delusions of grandeur, were bound to make him an instant outcast. No doubt Mike and Niall thought he was weird as shit. In fact, even Arthur thought he was weird as shit, but it was a strangely endearing kind of weird – something that would no doubt stop being cute if he didn’t grow out of it soon, but to have a seven-year-old boy proclaim himself a reincarnation of the great wizard Merlin was as surreal as it was adorable.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me,” Arthur said, when Merlin cast him an uncertain glance.

They’d almost reached the home, now, and Arthur slowed his steps. He let Lady Helen unlock the front door and the children spill into the hall before he ushered Merlin in as well. Before the boy could disappear on him, however, he took Merlin’s arm.

“Listen,” he said quietly. “You said you’ve been getting a hard time because of it, because the other children don’t understand. But that’s their problem, alright? You’re brilliant, and just because they don’t get it doesn’t mean you should start hiding who you are. Okay? Never stop being yourself.”

He let go after that, caught off guard by his own pathos, and waved Merlin off. “Go on, then,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Head on up.”

The others kids headed upstairs with an apparently necessary amount of yelling and shoving, but Merlin hesitated. He folded his hands and fixed Arthur with an earnest look. "Thank you," he said formally. "You're a lot wiser than you used to be."

Despite the ridiculousness of the situation, Arthur found himself mimicking his tone, adding a little bow at the end for posterity. “Thank you,” he said. “You’ve always been quite wise, yourself.”

Merlin cut his eyes away, mouth growing tight. Arthur’s stomach dropped, since apparently he’d once again managed to upset the kid and he didn’t even know _how_ , but before he could put his panicked thoughts into order, Merlin nodded curtly. “Thank you, sir,” he said, or something like it, before he turned and made his way up the stairs.

Arthur watched him go, heart sinking. He hadn’t been lying – Merlin _was_ a brilliant kid, but there was no way in hell he was going to make it through school unscathed, let alone make any friends, if he went around telling tales of how he was a reborn medieval wizard. The very idea was ludicrous, and with Merlin just going to go around _telling_ people stuff like that, his entire childhood was going to be hell.

Strangely enough, the thought of Merlin hurt and lonely made his stomach turn, and Arthur watched him drag his feet up the stairs like that alone might keep the kid safe.

He didn’t turn away, not even when he heard soft footsteps approach from behind him.

Lady Helen laid a hand on his arm. “I can put you into contact with his case worker, you know?”

Arthur would like to say that he didn’t even hesitate. That he didn’t even blink, that he said ‘Of course,’ before his brain had even properly processed the question.

Instead, he halted. “I’ll – I’ll get back to you.”

“Of course,” Lady Helen said, with a graceful incline of her head, and took her hand away.

Arthur nodded jerkily. He shoved his hands into his pockets and he walked away, walked away without ever looking back.

 

Arthur spent that night sitting on his couch with a beer in his hand, staring blankly at the wall above the telly.

A kid. Did he want a kid? He was at home here, in his modern high-rise with the parking garage and the work-out centre downstairs, the balcony where you could just barely see Tower Bridge in the distance. He loved his gigantic television and the beer in the fridge and his usually empty but decadent four-poster bed – his painstakingly perfected bachelor pad.

A kid would change everything. No more getting drunk over video games, or deciding to go out at one in the morning on a Saturday, or staying late at work when he’d spent the afternoon procrastinating with funny cat pictures on the internet. No more walking around naked on those rare hot days or living off take-out for weeks on end.

He’d have to move.

A kid would change everything. _Merlin_ would change everything, every single thing Arthur loved about his unplanned lifestyle, his bouts into workaholism, his occasional nostalgic nights of partying until dawn. Merlin meant planning ahead and knowing what he was doing and having arguments over the sweets at the check-out at Tesco’s and being responsible for a tiny little person that already had plenty of issues on its own, and it was a terrible idea.

And yet.

 

He ended up calling her at half nine in the evening, after two glasses of port because sober, he’d chickened out every time he’d tried dialing her number.

“I – Yes. Yes.”

 

Mithian, the case worker, was younger than Arthur had expected. She wore a sharp suit that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Arthur’s office and her hair in a braided bun, and, wonder of wonders, she seemed to actually _like_ Arthur.

“You seem like a good man,” she said, when Arthur, laden down with paperwork and informational pamphlets, managed to ask her why.

She stacked a handful of forms together and placed them on top of Arthur’s ever-growing pile. “And God knows Merlin could use a good man in his life.”

 

The next time Arthur was in Battersea, Lady Helen beckoned him into her office. They still hadn't told Merlin anything, but she smiled like the whole thing was a foregone conclusion. Arthur was only a little surprised when Mithian showed up a few minutes later. He was even less surprised when there were more forms to fill out and questions to answer, but eventually, Mithian laid the paperwork aside and smiled at him.

“Are there any questions you have right now?”

Arthur didn’t have to think about that. “Is his name really Merlin?”

Her lips quirked. “Certainly not,” she said. “But as far as we can tell, he’s refused to answer to anything else ever since he’s been old enough to pronounce the word.”

Lady Helen set a cup of coffee down by his elbow. "According to the neighbours, it had always been just him and his mum, and she never tried to make him go by anything else."

"She died when he was very young," Mithian added. "Merlin has spent most of his life without a patent figure of any kind, so I hope you're prepared for a challenge."

Arthur frowned. "But if he came into the system so young, wouldn't he have been adopted already?" Mithian had told him there was a shortage of foster parents, but surely a toddler shouldn't have been too hard to place.

Lady Helen pursed her lips. "Well, you've no doubt noticed that he's a little - peculiar, at times."

Arthur had, actually, but it still annoyed him to think that people would look at the kid and dismiss him out of hand just because he was, well... weird. He wrinkled his nose. "As far as I'm concerned, that's just another party of his charm."

He thought it sounded pretty good, but apparently that had been the wrong thing to say; Mithian's face fell a little.

“Arthur, have you considered that living with Merlin will be difficult at times?”

“An eight-year-old who badmouths complete strangers and thinks he’s some eighth-century wizard?” Arthur feels his lips tug upwards. “I think I got that, yeah.”

The two women traded a look.

Arthur bit back an annoyed comment. "I promise," he said, "that I know what I'm getting myself into."

"Oh honey." Mithian leaned forward to pat his arm. "Nobody ever knows what they're getting themselves into, with kids."

 

In the end, it was as painless as a voicemail he found after a meeting with city planning – congratulations, Mr. Pendragon, you’ve been tentatively approved as a foster parent.

Actually having Merlin come live with him involved quite a bit more legalities, parenting classes, concessions, planning, but Arthur barely even heard any of that. He’d been approved. From here on out, the hard part was over.

 

Actually, as Arthur found out some ten days later, the hardest part was asking Merlin for his approval – he was fairly certain the boy was going to say yes, but his palms were still sweaty and his heart still beat steadily in his chest. He hadn’t been this nervous since the first time he’d asked a girl out on a date, thirteen and spotty, and while that had felt like the most important moment of his life at that point, this was so much bigger than that. He talked himself up and he talked himself down, he spoke with Lady Helen and Mithian, he convinced Merlin to come sit in the garden with him – not for footie, just to talk – and then couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

It would have been better if they didn’t have an audience, he thought. He didn’t turn to look, but he had a feeling that at least half the kids and staff were plastered against the windows, anticipating what was coming like foster home bloodhounds. Merlin, if he noticed anything odd about the situation, didn’t seem to care; instead, he sat quietly on the bench next to Arthur and fumbled the toy soldiers he’d brought with him into half-hearted poses.

“Merlin?” Arthur prodded his side. He didn’t get eye contact, but there was an absent hum, and he wasn’t sure he would get the words out as it was. “Merlin, I’d like to ask you something.”

Merlin glanced at him for only a moment. “What?”

Arthur licked his lips. “You see, ah,” was all he managed. He spent a hysterical moment feeling like he was about to propose, which was both disturbing and frighteningly accurate. After all, was he not about to ask Merlin to share his life with him, for better or for worse, until the end of their days?

With a sigh, Arthur covered Merlin’s hands with his own. “Put the toys down for a moment,” he said.

Merlin obeyed. He turned curious eyes on Arthur then, and leaned his head to the side. “What is it?”

Arthur licked his lips again, cleared his throat. “You like hanging out with me, right?” he asked. “You like me.”

Merlin tilted his head to the other side. “For certain values of the word ‘like,’ yes.”

It took Arthur a moment to realize he was teasing. Usually, he would have responded by rubbing his knuckles over Merlin’s scalp, but it didn’t seem appropriate now, so he quirked his lips a little instead.

Merlin, who clearly had been expecting a different reaction, stared at him.

“That’s good,” Arthur said. “Because _I_ like _you_ a lot, and I like hanging out with you, and I had a talk with some people, and well.” Swallowing, he withdrew his hands from Merlin’s and settled them in his lap instead. “How would you like to come live with me?”

The boy didn’t react right away. While Arthur held his breath, Merlin picked up his soldiers and contemplated first one, then the other. “Okay,” he said quietly.

Arthur frowned. “'Okay,’ or, ‘Yes, I want to?’”

Merlin looked up. There was a brilliant smile on his face. “Yes, I want to.”

 

Mithian was actually quite an attractive woman, Arthur mused when he showed up at her office with his last parenting class completion certificate in hand. He’d hit on her if he was willing to ruin his chances of getting his hands on Merlin. But her smile was lovely, warmer than ever now that the ball was really rolling, and she didn’t even seem to mind telling him that practically everything in his life would have to change, from his working hours to his occasional forays into dating.

Arthur, stupidly, found himself smiling back at her, even when she looked up from his file with a crease between her brows and said, “You know your current living arrangement won’t work with Merlin there?”

Arthur nodded. “We’ll move into a house,” he said.

Mithian, forehead creasing, gave him an evaluating look. “A move will eat up additional funds, you do realize?”

Arthur felt the corners of his mouth curl up. He eased the notepad from her fingers, jotted down a number, and handed it back to her with a flourish.

Mithian blinked. “What’s this?”

“My salary,” Arthur said smoothly. “Monthly,” he added, and took great delight in watching her go a little green. “We’ll move into a house.”

 

Arthur got permission to take Merlin house shopping with him, and for several weeks in a row, they spent their Saturdays driving with the estate agent all over London in search of a good place to live. Most of them were terrible, even with a financial limit that had had stars sparkling in the agent’s eyes – too small, too big, terrible conditions, terrible neighbourhood, thirty minutes’ walk from the nearest tube station.

“You have a car,” the agent hesitantly pointed out, and clearly regretted it a moment later when Arthur launched into an automatic rant about carbon emissions, gas usage, and the horror of driving in London in general.

Arthur was just about starting to despair when, one afternoon, she met them at the agency’s door with an incredibly pleased look on her face, something she managed to make look charming rather than smug.

“I think I have something for you,” she said, and pointed them to her car.

 

Arthur had barely laid eyes on the place when he started to get the feeling she was right. She’d brought them to a charming little townhouse in Canons Park, thankfully separate from its neighbours, with recent renovations and on a quiet street. There was space for Arthur’s seldom-used car at the front and a small garden accessible from the living room through a sliding door at the back. There’s a spacious kitchen, too. Together with the living room, it made up most of the lower floor.

A rickety staircase that creaked with every step headed up to the second story. Merlin, of course, stomped up and down three times before he discovered the thrill of the upstairs bedrooms. Arthur heard him clomp down the hall, yelling, “Hey, there’s-“, then, more faintly, “This is _wicked_ ,” then, with increasing volume, “Arthur, you have to check this out!”

Arthur looked up to see Merlin practically slam into the landing’s railing.  
He smiled up at him wryly. “I take it you approve?”

Merlin, like he sometimes did, suddenly seemed to switch personalities entirely. “Oh, you know,” he said with a shrug. “It’s alright.”

Arthur didn’t bother disguising his grin. With pointed leisure, he made his way up the stairs while Merlin shifted on the landing with increasing impatience. Dimly, he heard the agent comment that she’d let them have a look around undisturbed, but Arthur didn’t care about that very much – not when he had Merlin tugging on his hand, trying and failing not to look excited.

 

Merlin’s birthday was in September. Arthur had hoped to have custody by then, so he might be able to take Merlin somewhere nice to celebrate the occasion, but as he hadn’t yet been cleared, another group outing was the best Lady Helen could do. Two weeks, she and Mithian had said. In two weeks, he could take Merlin home.

They walked all the way to the Tate Britain to get ice cream, Arthur’s treat. None of the kids seemed to care very much that it was Merlin’s birthday, and Merlin didn’t seem to care very much about the other kids. He stuck close to Arthur’s side the entire way.

With his mouth sticky with chocolate, he told Arthur some long and meandering story about that time ‘Elyan’ had stolen a pie from the kitchens and everything that happened thereafter, and only stopped when Nicolette overheard and started laughing.

He didn’t say anything else after that.

Arthur dropped his cone in the nearest bin, appetite lost. “Two weeks,” he said.

Merlin nodded. “Two weeks,” he said quietly.

 

It ended up being closer to four. By the time Mithian called him to say he could pick Merlin up that Saturday if he liked, Arthur felt like he’d walked grooves into their new living room, and he’d possibly worn through the skin of his lower lip with his teeth. Still, he managed a perfectly civil conversation, thanked Mithian for the news, for her dedication and support, promised his utmost dedication to Merlin’s welfare (again), and wished her a pleasant week.

Then he dropped his five-hundred pound phone, yelled his joy out to the heavens, collapsed on his recently displaced couch and just about had a panic attack.

 

He barely remembered the rest of the week. Meetings and briefings and emails rushed by in one large, corporate blur, and then Saturday morning crept along in Technicolor glory. Arthur was aware of every detail; his breakfast cereal, the shirt he had to wear because he'd stained his favorite with printer ink two days before; the news show about the cost-benefit of alternative energy that he'd usually have watched with obsessive interest and now could hardly pay attention to. He wondered what Merlin was doing - was it just an ordinary morning for him, or did they have a ritual for these sorts of things? Did he have a party last night? Arthur hadn’t actually talked to him since everything had been approved, and that part made him infinitely nervous. What if Merlin had gotten cold feet? What if _Arthur_ had gotten cold feet, and he just hadn’t noticed it yet?

Driving down to Battersea at least gave him something to do. He didn’t have the energy to curse at the cabbies and the buses and the tourists who somehow thought driving through London in their imported cars was a good idea, but at least they gave him something else to concentrate on than his own ever-circling thoughts. Thinking about traffic was preferable to that uncertain limbo he’d found himself in that morning. Anything was better than thinking about Merlin, or himself, or what the hell Arthur thought he was doing with his life.

 

Lady Helen opened the door with a smugly pleased smile Arthur was fairly sure she wouldn’t have allowed to remain on her face if she’d been aware of it.

Still, it made him feel a little better, knowing that she so clearly approved. He let her usher him into the entrance hall, then told him to wait while she fetched ‘the boy.’ With the sound of her heels fading on the stairs, Arthur cast an uncertain look around. He had a bit of an audience, though not as much as he’d been expecting; Santos gave him a furtive thumbs up, and Marissa and Lily were loitering quite unsubtly by the office doors, but none of the kids were there. Arthur had expected the whole lot of them to be there, to gawp, and he couldn’t deny he was glad they weren’t there. He wasn’t sure what they felt about him and Merlin, but no matter how they reacted – disappointment at not having been chosen, envy, scorn, anger, resignation; even if they were legitimately glad to see Merlin go, Arthur didn’t think he’d be able to stand it.

Lady Helen’s heels, hitting the ground slower than before, alerted him to her return several seconds before she came back into view. For a wild moment, Arthur thought the lack of a second set of footfalls meant Merlin had decided not to come with him after all, until the woman and her charge came into view and he realized the boy couldn’t be heard because his steps were soft, hesitant, dragging his feet as much as you could when you were ushered down a winding set of stairs.

It wasn’t a very encouraging sight.

Still, Lady Helen had a suitcase with her, and she urged Merlin forward halfway through the hall. She set the luggage down and then retreated to her co-workers at the office door, keeping a pointed eye on the proceedings from an equally pointed distance.

Merlin - a thick, handsomely bound book clutched to his chest - stared at Arthur.

Arthur swallowed. He waited for a while, keenly aware of their audience, the silence in the hall, someone yelling upstairs. Of Merlin’s eyes on him, the way he licked his lips and then didn’t say anything.

Slowly, he knelt down on the ground to meet the kid at eye-level. “Hey,” he said quietly, wary of chasing the boy away.

Instead, Merlin shuffled closer with his eyes shyly turned away, and came to a hesitant stop several feet away. “Hullo,” he said.

“Hello,” Arthur said cautiously. He could feel his heart beating painfully fast, now that the moment was finally here – some sort of strange mixture between excitement and nervousness, because what if this didn’t work out? What if it did?

Silence fell. Arthur knew there were eyes on them, could feel them prickling at the back of his neck and the top of his head, but he wasn’t willing to rush this. He’d never claimed to be a particularly sensitive individual, but he refused to rush a child into a decision like that, no matter how uncomfortable Arthur might be.

When Merlin shifted on his feet, the movement drew Arthur’s attention back to the book in his arms, and his white-knuckled grip on it.

“What have you got there?” he asked, his voice soft.

Hesitantly, Merlin offered him the cover to read – _Arthur of Albion_. “They give one to every kid who leaves,” he said quietly. “Usually it’s fairy tales.” He shot a dark look at Lady Helen. “But not this time, because they think they’re _funny_.”

“I think it’s kind of nice, actually,” Arthur said, and cursed himself when Merlin immediately fell silent.

He shifted from foot to foot, darting a solitary glance at Arthur before he curled back in on himself and the book in his arms. He certainly didn’t look like a boy ecstatic about his new home – more like a boy marching off to face an evil stepmother, or something of the sort, and that more than anything managed to unleash a fresh wave of doubt in Arthur, as well.

He didn’t think he’d be able to ever get the words to cross his lips, but somehow he managed to say, with a voice that was mostly steady, “You know, it’s okay to change your mind.”

The horrified look the kid shot him was more than a little gratifying. “No,” he said loudly. He fell silent again a moment later, fidgeting uselessly with the hem of his shirt. “I’m not,” he said, then broke off once more. He shot Arthur a quick look, then let his eyes flicker away again. “It’s just – I waited a long time.”

Arthur’s heart clenched painfully. It felt like he himself had been waiting for sheer eternities for this moment, like all he’d ever done was wait for this, for years, decades, centuries – but a year ago, he hadn’t even known Merlin existed. Merlin, on the other hand, had spent most of his life waiting for someone to come for him, to get him out of here, and to him, the many years of his short life must have seemed never-ending.

Arthur swallowed heavily before he produced a smile – a bit sad, perhaps, but heartfelt, and he hoped Merlin could see that. Quietly, he said, “Don’t you think you’ve waited enough now?”

Merlin’s lips parted soundlessly. He took a careful step closer, and another. His mouth opened, but no sound would come out, and it seemed to take painfully long moments until he forced his head into a jerky nod. He didn’t return Arthur’s smile, but considering the state he seemed to be in, that was probably asking too much anyway.

With cracking knees, Arthur pushed to his feet, intending to say goodbye to their audience. He glanced down in surprise when a moment later, Merlin pressed his forehead into Arthur’s stomach, neck tilted at an awkward angle and eyes firmly closed.

He didn’t reach out for a hug, didn’t even seem willing to lighten his iron grip on his book, so Arthur didn’t hug him back. He had a feeling Lady Helen and Marissa and Lily were all waiting for it, but Arthur had stopped letting other people dictate his actions a long time ago. Instead, he cupped the back of Merlin’s head and scratched ever so lightly at the boy’s scalp.

“Come on, kid. Let’s go home.”

 

Arthur, because he’d figured that Merlin’s arrival should warrant something special, decided on some sort of roast and mash, traditional stuff, for a ‘welcome to your new home’ dinner. Really, you put the meat in the oven, how hard could it be?

 

Arthur made Merlin climb on a kitchen stool and fan the smoke away from the shrilly blaring smoke detector while he inspected the damage. The bird had turned to crispy black charcoal, and when he checked the potatoes, they’d fallen apart in the water. With a sigh, Arthur dumped both and surveyed what else they had stowed away in the cupboards.

He gave Merlin an assessing look. “How do you feel about beans on toast?”

 

Merlin, strangely enough, turned out not to be a picky eater. Sure, he made faces like he was handling raw slugs instead of beans from a can, but, when served with a slice of warm toast and a can with a fork in it, he ate without a word of complaint. Sure, the people from Arthur’s parenting classes were probably turning in their – not graves, since he assumed they hadn’t died in the past couple of months. Beds, perhaps? – but he figured it was sustenance first, proper nutrition second, and managing to feed the kid something edible without poisoning him or lighting him on fire was most likely a step in the right direction. A small step, but a step nonetheless.

After the first round, Arthur got up to make more toast, feeling less like an enormous failure than he had thirty minutes ago. It was strange, of course, hearing the kid making happy noises behind him, humming and kicking his feet in a way nobody who came to visit Arthur ever did. The counter was different from his old one, at the flat he’d lived in for the better part of a decade, and the walls, and the windows, and everything had changed the moment he’d decided to have Merlin be a part of his life. It was startling, and not altogether pleasant, but it was the way things were going to be now, and Arthur was okay with that.

Epiphany over with, he returned to the table and laid the painfully hot slices on Merlin’s plate before siphoning one off for himself. “Go on,” he said. “When Mithian comes to check on us, I want you to have gained at least five stone.” He laughed when Merlin rolled his eyes. “If I don’t have to roll you to her, I’m not doing it right.”

Merlin spooned a few more beans out of the tin and, abruptly, smiled shyly at Arthur.

“I like this,” he said. “S’nice.”

He gazed expectantly – anxiously – at Arthur, who couldn’t help but smile back. He bumped their shoulders together and, as he reached for the tea pot, said, “Me too, kid. Me too.”

 

Merlin slept sprawled out. He somehow covered the entirety of his bed, in the room he’d picked out that Arthur had gotten together but left pitifully undecorated. He had one arm flung across his pillow and the other stuffed below it. His hair was falling into his face and his mouth hung open. One foot dangled over the edge, but his sleep-soft expression registered no discomfort.

He slept like a child.

It was easy to forget, sometimes, that for all his big words and overly flowery imagination, Merlin was a child. A child that Arthur was now responsible for, nothing but Arthur standing between him and the big bad world, a thought so abruptly terrifying that it sent Arthur’s heart hammering away in his chest. He was determined to protect him, to do everything in his power to keep him safe, but that didn’t make the thought any easier to bear.

With a sigh, Arthur flicked the light switch and plunged Merlin’s room into darkness. There was a laundry list of things he had to take care of if he really wanted to do this parenting thing right, and leaning against the doorway, staring at Merlin while he slept, wasn’t one of them.

 

“So we’ll be taking the tube together in the mornings,” Arthur said, trailing a finger along the grey line.

Merlin knelt next to him on the sofa, so close Arthur could feel his breath on his arm, inspecting the map spread out on the coffee table with a critical eye.

“…All the way to Swiss Cottage, and then I’ll keep going until Canary Wharf.”

Merlin nodded slowly. He bit his lip, and fidgeted a little bit, and started when Arthur poked him in the shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

The kid shot him a look. “Are they gonna think it’s weird I’m starting after half-term?”

The honest answer was ‘probably.’ But then the kids in his class were likely going to think Merlin was weird regardless of when he started, simply by virtue of Merlin being the kind of kid who identified more with an old man from ancient legends than whoever was big on the Disney Channel at the moment.

“I don’t think they’ll care too much,” Arthur decided on, in the end. “I think you’ll be fine.”

Merlin hummed, unconvinced, and Arthur felt a sudden stab of guilt that he’d simply decided for Merlin to switch schools – because this new one was more convenient for Arthur, without even considering that starting at a whole new school with completely new classmates in the middle of term would be extremely inconvenient for Merlin.

With his heart in his throat, he asked gently, “Would you have wanted to stay at your old school?”

To his relief, there was no hesitation when Merlin shook his head. “They were stupid,” he said.

“Oh, good.” Arthur ducked his head to hide his relief. He’d chosen St. Paul’s Primary School fairly carefully, with Mithian’s help, and considered everything from available tutors to a lack of tie in the school uniform because Merlin would probably manage to strangle himself with it within days, but he’d never actually asked Merlin what he wanted. Apparently he had a ways to go yet as far as consideration towards others went. It was an inherited trait – Uther, when he’d decided on what he thought best, steamrollered over everything in his path. Arthur had always tried not to do that himself, but apparently determination wasn’t everything.

“Anyway,” he said. “School ends at three, but I have to be at work until five or so, so we’re going to get someone to pick you up from school and get you home – make you something to eat if you’re hungry, help with homework, whatever.”

Merlin looked less than impressed, so he added, “Someone fun. Okay? You get to veto. Within reason.”

Merlin’s eyes, which had lit up at the promise of veto-power, narrowed unhappily.

Something in the hall hit the ground with a thud.

“Did your new house eat you, or something? I swear to God you haven’t answered the phone in days.”

Arthur had grown so used to Morgana barging in wherever and whenever she wanted over the years that her sudden commentary barely registered. What caught his attention, however, was the way Merlin stiffened at his side, silent but so violently Arthur wasn’t convinced the kid hadn’t strained something.

“Arthur?”

Morgana, in her favourite black dress, appeared in the doorway. Her hair was open and willowy and she was as pale as ever even though he knew she’d gone to Egypt with her newest boy toy just a couple of weeks ago. She leaned into the room with her hands on either side of the doorway, lips already parted to go on, and then she caught sight of Merlin and froze.

“I didn’t know you’ve started babysitting,” she finally said.

Arthur rolled his eyes. “This is Merlin, Morgana, I told you I was thinking about fostering.”

“Yeah.” Morgana didn’t stop staring. “I just didn’t think you were _serious_.”

Merlin, when Arthur cast him a look, wasn’t taking the surprise visit too well. He’d gone paler than Arthur had ever seen him, even in the early spring when he’d only left the house when Arthur dragged him out. When Morgana came a step closer, he shuffled behind Arthur to hide himself from view.

It felt fairly shallow, but Arthur still got a thrill from that; that Merlin trusted him to protect him from the scary intruder. He leaned his head towards the kid to catch his attention and smiled.

“This is my sister Morgana,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about her, okay? She stopped biting people a long time ago.”

Morgana lifted a haughty finger. “I’ll have you know that I only bit you when you deserved it,” she said, but her gaze drifted back to Merlin a moment later. Or his hair, anyway, because just about everything else of the boy had shrunk behind Arthur. She rose onto her tiptoes and craned her neck, and when that only made the kid retreat even farther, she sighed and settled back down.

“I’ll go make myself some tea,” she told Arthur. “You have until then to come up with satisfactory answers.”

She swanned into the kitchen with a haughty flip of her hair. Arthur rolled his eyes at her retreating back. He scoffed, and then looked around for the boy, and had to keep turning and turning his head because Merlin had practically disappeared entirely behind Arthur’s back.

It was a sobering sight.

“Hey,” Arthur said quietly. He lifted his arm and, when Merlin made to draw back again, settled it around the kid’s shoulders.

After a hesitant pause, the boy relaxed into the touch.

“You really don’t have to be scared of her, okay? She acts tough, but she’s a good person at heart.”

After a moment’s consideration, Merlin knee-walked closer and tugged on Arthur’s collar. When Arthur turned, he cupped a hand around Arthur’s ear and whispered, “It’s just because I can’t _do_ anything, you know? I know she couldn’t touch me otherwise.”

Arthur blinked a couple of times. “Right!” he said after a moment. “Listen, if she freaks you out that much, you don’t have to hang around, okay? You can head upstairs or something. Barricade yourself in your bedroom.” He grinned. “I’ll hold her off, I promise.”

At the kid’s sceptical look, he added, “She’s not going to do anything to me, Merlin, really. She’s my sister.”

Merlin stared at him.

With a roll of his eyes, Arthur pushed him towards the stairs. “I promise to yell really loudly if she tries to strangle me, okay? Go on.”

Merlin, clearly unconvinced, tottered off towards the stairs. He nearly tripped over his own feet because he wasn’t willing to take his eyes off the kitchen doorway for even a second. Arthur kept a straight face until the moment the boy was out of sight, and then he allowed himself a moment of unrestrained grinning before he swallowed it down and went to find Morgana.

She was still rummaging around with the tea. Arthur had vaguely suspected her of giving him time to talk things over with Merlin, uncharacteristically sensitive of her as that might be, but, given how flustered she seemed to be, perhaps she was trying to get herself settled, instead. She jumped when she caught sight of him, sending her favourite mug clattering into the sink, and startled again when Arthur gently pushed her aside.

“Why don’t I do that?” he prompted. “Before you send my kitchen up in flames.”

Morgana stepped aside. Arthur fixed tea for the both of them, pretending not to notice the way she was staring at him. “Sugar?” he asked, like he didn’t know exactly, and pushed the sugar bowl and cup over to her.

“You know,” Morgana said slowly, with the spoon clinking gently against the porcelain, “your sudden decision to move makes a lot more sense now.”

Arthur shrugged, embarrassed. Okay, so he shouldn’t have kept the whole thing from her. He probably should have told his father at some point, too, but, well. Arthur could stand to procrastinate for a couple more days before he faced that particular dragon.

“He seems like a sweet kid.” She took a calculating sip of her tea. “A little jumpy, perhaps.”

“Maybe it’s because you terrified the almighty dickens out of him.”

She managed to actually look contrite at that. Of course she rallied a moment later, saying, “Well, he caught me a little off guard, too, you know. You never even said anything!”

She had a point there. Arthur pulled a face. He ran his hands over his face and confessed a muffled, “I didn’t want anybody to talk me out of it.”

“Well,” Morgana said, with the sweet levity Arthur had learned early on to dread. “Why ever would you be worried about somebody trying to talk you out of something like that? It’s almost like you knew it was a _bloody ridiculous idea_.”

Arthur winced at her sudden increase in tone, but instead of cowering under her temper like he usually did – eventually – he found a spark of anger to thrust back at her. “Will you keep your voice down?” he hissed back. “Think about me what you’d like, but you’re not going to make Merlin doubt his place here, not while you’re swanning around _my_ house.”

For a moment, he thought Morgana would deliver a stinging retort. Instead she deflated. “I don’t mean to,” she said. “I just- Arthur, you never said _anything_.”

It wasn’t strictly true – Arthur had, in fact, mentioned hypothetical adoption to his family, met disbelief at every turn, and decided to let the matter drop in favour of turning the hypothetical into facts. He’d known even at the time that it wasn’t the smartest course of action, but the whole business with Merlin had been staggering enough without bringing his reluctant family into the mix.

“He’s important to me,” Arthur said, when the silence dragged on too long to be comfortable.

It probably said a lot about his family that, instead of berating him further for his secrecy, especially _because_ Merlin was apparently so important to him, Morgana’s expression turned soft and sympathetic. Those were Pendragons for you – Heaven forbid any of them ever admit to having _feelings._

 

Merlin, when Arthur went up to check on him, had curled up on his bed in the corner the room with his Arthurian legends – no great surprise there. He didn’t seem to be reading them, though, just sitting with the closed book in his lap. He watched Arthur’s advance into the room warily, but obligingly scooted over when Arthur took a seat next to him.

“Hello,” Arthur said.

The boy looked at the book.

Arthur counted to fifteen in his head, and when Merlin had yet to answer, said, “Do you want to tell me what your problem is with Morgana, perhaps?”

Merlin’s decided shake of his head did manage to make him laugh.

“Fair enough,” he said. Despite Merlin’s aborted noise of protest, he lifted the book from his lap and – carefully – leafed through the first couple of pages. “Anything good in here?” he asked. He didn’t think he’d ever read to anyone before, not outside of being forced to read aloud at school, but that was a thing parents did, right? They read to their kids?

Merlin, reluctantly, unfurled enough to point out a specific page. “I like that one,” he said.

Arthur flipped to the page in question and eyed the illustration with his eyebrows raised. A young Arthur was about to pull the sword from the stone, while a bearded man in severe robes looked on. If you asked Arthur, his namesake looked like a right twat in his tights and hat, but Merlin didn’t seem to care much about that. Instead, he jabbed a finger at the wizard, nailing him right in the thigh even though he was mostly looking out the window.

“That’s me.”

Arthur raised his eyebrow at the old geezer in his patterned cloak. “That’s Merlin, yeah.”

“Yeah,” Merlin said. He flipped a couple of pages ahead, past a couple of pictures, until he came to one of a hooded figure, a woman with dark tresses and an intense, pale stare. “That’s Morgana.”

Arthur considered the picture; he could feel Merlin’s eyes on him and figured that if he wanted to convince the kid of anything, he was going to have to feign some seriousness. Even if he really wanted to knock Merlin’s head with the book until he remembered that it was a _story_ , for God’s sake, with pictures by some guy who wasn’t even remotely alive at the time of the potentially real Merlin, and Merlin-the-kid lived in an entirely different century and was honestly getting to sound the tiniest bit insane.

And alright, fine, he could see how the picture could be frightening. “Well,” he said slowly, mind whirring. “This is Morgana the legend, though, right? Not my sister.”

Merlin gave him an unimpressed look, and Arthur hurried on with, “You know. She’s not _actually_ a thousand years old.”

The kid had a speculative glint to his eyes for far longer than Arthur was strictly comfortable with, because he was sure thirty seemed ancient to a child of Merlin’s age, but there was still kind of a difference of, oh, a millennium or so.

Eventually, though, Merlin shook his head. “No,” he said. “Everybody’s…” He waved a hand and didn’t elaborate, and Arthur took a relieved breath.

“So it’s kind of like everyone’s getting a second shot at it, right? You, me, Morgana…? We’re not forced to make the same mistakes all over again.”

Merlin considered that for a moment before he said, voice small, “I guess not,” and Arthur reached over to jostle his shoulder.

“Maybe you could try to give her a chance this time around then? I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be judged on things you did a thousand years ago.” As soon as the words are out, Arthur felt a surge of pride. He sounded like an _adult_. It was easily the most gratifying experience he’d had all week.

And even better, it actually seemed to work, because Merlin wavered. “I guess,” he mumbled, and suffered through Arthur scrubbing a rough hand through his hair. He looked up at Arthur through his lashes – it wasn’t cute or innocent, not with that stubborn set of his jaw. “If she tries to poison me, all bets are off.”

 

Taking care of a child, Arthur found himself realizing over the next couple of days, was less about knowing what you were doing – because you didn’t – and more about preventing every foreseeable disaster so you had time to deal with all the horror scenarios you _hadn’t_ seen coming. He was gladder than ever for the time off that Merlin's half-term break provided, because it left him with just enough time to buy school supplies, wander around the shops with a list of approved foods in his hand, and Merlin-proof the entire house. He needed the time, too, because all the time they’d spend with feach other once Merlin went back to school and Arthur went back to work – early mornings and evenings – was now allotted for getting a cranky Merlin out of bed and fed, or learning to cook edible food, or learning to cook food Merlin was actually willing to eat, or trying not to call Mithian in a panic every time the boy so much as twitched.

It was exhausting, always having at least half an eye on Merlin, and keeping an eight-year-old boy entertained was actually kind of painful, especially since the kid didn’t actually seem to like doing anything his peers did. He did like telling his stories, though, and could usually be distracted from whatever he was doing with a little bit of prodding, though he never seemed to be quite satisfied with Arthur’s reactions.

He was also less than pleased at the thought of a nanny picking him up from school and staying with him until Arthur made it home, but if Arthur budged on that he might as well turn his parenting license right back in, so he ignored Merlin’s pouting and spent an entire afternoon on the couch watching mind-numbing cartoons when the agency could send someone by.

Freya was mousy until she smiled, and then she was simply stunning. Merlin took to her like a duck took to water, too, despite his protests. He refused to even look at her half the time, but Arthur had seen the way he tugged on the flow-y sleeves of her hippie Baja cardigan the moment her attention left him.

Freya, Arthur decided after an afternoon of watching her calmly deny Merlin everything Arthur seemed to cave on, like junk food for dinner and extra telly before bed, without a single tantrum on the boy’s end, was like magic. According to her, it was because she was a future professional. Apparently that meant she was a grad student in child psychology, with all evening classes that explained both her willingness and her ability to babysit Merlin every afternoon, so Arthur felt fairly confident in leaving Merlin in her care. He wouldn't manage to run her off on the first day, at least. Hopefully. Perhaps Arthur could bribe her with hazard pay.

 

Arthur managed very neatly to get out of taking Merlin shopping for new clothes – because the shelters tried their best to clothe the kids well, but there was no denying that all of Merlin’s jeans were a good four, five centimetres too short – by sending him off with Morgana and her shiny fuel-nightmare of a car. It’d be good for the boy, he figured, to see that Morgana was perfectly lovely when she wanted to be, and it would be good for Arthur not to stand around shops all day hating his life.

On the downside, it meant that Arthur sat around on his recently supplanted couch, staring at an unfamiliar living room and wondering what on Earth he thought he was doing, taking on the care and feeding of a child when he couldn’t even make himself take said child clothes shopping. He watched Gordon Ramsey be semi-constructive for a while, accidentally saw five minutes of a rerun of _Big Fat Gypsy Weddings_ before he got disgusted with himself and the beeb, and then settled for watching the digital display on the DVD player switch and switch and switch again. A perfect opportunity to contemplate all the ways sending Merlin and Morgana off together had been one of the worst decisions of his short foray into parenthood so far. Arthur had never considered himself a particularly creative person, and yet his imagination was running wild. It was the worst kind of hell, and when he heard Morgana’s key scrape in the lock, he found himself on his feet without even thinking about it.

Merlin was first through the door. He shot Arthur a shrewd look before dropping whatever bags he was holding at Arthur’s feet. Arthur couldn’t tell if it was petulant or declaratory, like a cat might bring in a mauled mouse, but he could tell just from looking at him that the kid was exhausted, pale and bleary-eyed and casting longing looks at the stairs.

“Hello,” Arthur said.

Merlin whispered something, but Arthur was distracted from asking him to repeat himself when Morgana struggled through the door practically _loaded_ with bags, and by the time Arthur had helped her divest herself of her shopping, the boy had disappeared.

Arthur swallowed down a sigh. “I hope most of these are yours,” he told Morgana. “Because with these shops,” he said, nudging a Stella McCartney bag with his toes, “you would have blown the budget with a single bag.”

Morgana handed him his credit card back with a flourish. “Not a pence more than you okayed, brother dear,” she said. “The rest I paid for, because I refuse to let my new nephew wander around dressed like a street urchin.” She laid a dramatic hand on her heart. “Think of what the papers would say.”

“We don’t actually make the society pages,” Arthur reminded her. Sure, Vivienne and Uther together made quite the power couple, and they did show up at Paparazzi-relevant events, but it wasn’t like they were royalty, or anything.

Morgana rolled her eyes. “I have friends, and so do you,” she said. “And these people are filthy rich and expect us to dress the part also, so I’m just making your life easier in the long run. And besides,” she added, pointing down at the very same bag Arthur had singled out, “I made sure they’re all Arthur-approved brands, and I paid for them all, so there is nothing for you to complain about.”

“Right.” Arthur sighed again. He was weirdly exhausted, even though the most tiring thing he’d done all day was throw left-over pizza in the microwave. Speaking of – “Merlin?” he called. “How d’you feel about food?”

Upstairs, a door opened. Merlin didn’t actually come into view, but he heard shuffling footsteps, and then a small, “Yeah, sure.”

Arthur frowned, taking a step towards the staircase.

Morgana caught his sleeve. “Hey,” she said quietly. She waited until the footsteps upstairs had faded away, and then she said, voice low, “Go easy on him tonight, okay? I tried my best, but I think he still spent the better part of the day terrified.”

She smiled wryly when she let him go. Arthur knew her well enough to tell that she was hurt, even if she would never admit it, and caught her hand before she could get away. He pressed a quick kiss to her knuckles.

“Thank you,” he said, letting his earnest appreciation bleed through.

With a reluctant smile, she tugged her hand away. “You’re not supposed to actually kiss me,” she said.

“I’m not actually a medieval knight,” Arthur reminded her. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

Morgana ran her hand through her hair, sending it tumbling over her shoulders in a move worthy of a shampoo commercial. “I’d better not,” she said, with a regretful glance at the ceiling. “I think Merlin’s had about all of me he can take.”

“He’s going to have to get used to you eventually,” Arthur reminded her. “You’re my sister, after all. I plan on you being around for a long time.”

She smiled, charmed despite herself in a way Arthur only occasionally managed to coax out of her, but shook her head again. “He doesn’t have to get used to me right now,” she said. “I actually want him to like me, Lord help me, and that might just take a bit of time.” She chucked Arthur underneath the chin. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m older and wiser, remember?”

“And uglier,” Arthur added automatically, and she smiled at him.

“And busier.” She tugged her clutch underneath her arm. “I’m off. Keep me in the loop, will you?”

Arthur waved her off. He waited until the door had clicked shut behind her before surveying the mess of bags at his feet with his hands on his hips. If she’d wanted to be truly helpful, Morgana might have remembered to buy a second dresser, as well.

 

Merlin, Arthur was quick to find out, was the most accident prone child in the history of accidents. He tripped over things, bumped into things, dropped things, and fell off things. He scalded his tongue on his tea, cut his fingers when trying to chop vegetables, and on one memorable occasion, tried to get a spoon out of the drawer to eat his cereal with and ended up with a giant bleeding gash in his arm.

“I have no idea what happened,” Arthur pleaded with the doctor on duty at the emergency clinic. “I know it looks bad, but I’d never hurt him. I don’t know how he does it.”

Doctor Finna twisted her mouth like she was trying not to laugh. “I’ve called his social worker,” she said. “She’s on her way. I’m sure everything will sort itself out.”

Arthur spent the next half-hour on hot coals, shifting around in his plastic seat while behind the curtain, Merlin told the nurse patching him up half-coherent stories. She didn’t seem to mind, at least, making noncommittal but compassionate noises, and kept saying things like, “You can go home soon enough,” and “It’s not bad at all,” that Arthur had the sneaking suspicion were for _his_ benefit far more than Merlin’s.

It didn’t help much – he was a mess of nerves by the time Mithian showed up, looking like she’d thrown a blazer over her outfit to take it from day-off to professional, which didn’t do anything to improve Arthur’s mood. He _would_ manage to have her called to the A &E on the one day she didn’t actually have to work.

At least she didn’t seem upset. Calm and cool, she had Arthur describe what happened, and then talked to Doctor Finna for a while, and then the nurse drew back the curtain and ushered Merlin over to them. The kid was pale, bandages swelling his arm to twice its size, but he lit up when he saw them waiting for him.

“Arthur,” he exclaimed, delighted, like he’d forgotten entirely that Arthur was there.

Arthur couldn’t quite stay mad at him, though, not when a moment later Merlin pitched face-first into his stomach and clung there, and not when Arthur, halfway through wrapping his arms around the kid, caught Mithian’s approving look.

With a groan, he slid his hands into Merlin’s armpits and lifted him up to rest against his chest. “Come on,” he said. “Time to go.”

 

Arthur took two days off work, and then asked Freya to hang around for one more, and then spent the weekend watching Merlin alternately whine about his injuries and run around like nothing could possibly bother him. They played video games for a while, switching to movies when that proved too frustrating, and then to junk food when the movies proved too much temptation for unwanted commentary. Merlin, Arthur quickly figured out, was a lot less likely to share his opinion on anything and everything when he was stuffed to the teeth with snacks.

Not that he didn’t try. Arthur had never met anyone so determined to continue speaking even with his entire mouth full of food. Merlin was a _slob_. It was horrifying.

Finally, in the middle of _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ , with Merlin passionately and barely intelligibly dissecting Indy’s life choices, Arthur burst out with, “You know, Vivienne always used to say that multitasking was a fine and admirable skill to have, except for when you’re eating.”

Merlin stuffed another handful of crisps into his mouth and grinned when Arthur cringed. “Who’s Vivienne?”

“My stepmother,” Arthur said. He reached over to tug the bag from Merlin’s greasy fingers and wiped crumbs from the kid’s cheek with his thumb. “Morgana’s mother.”

He could see the confusion on the boy’s face, which wasn’t fine because _everybody_ got confused. So he tossed a crisp into his mouth and said, “She and my father were married before he met _my_ mother, and after my mother died he went and married her again. She took him back, but she’s still bitter about it.”

“Your family’s whacky,” Merlin said.

Grinning, Arthur reached over and scrubbed his hand through the kid’s hair. “That’s good, though. You’ll fit right in.”

 

Christmas time had, in recent years, mostly passed Arthur by. Rain was rain no matter the season, and aside from the occasional reindeer decorations and platters of cookies in the break room, the only indication that something festive was going on had been the annual invitation to the family Christmas party at Morgana’s.

Apparently things were a lot different when you had a kid. It seemed like every day there were festive activities to somehow get out of – cookie baking for charity and nativity plays and invitations to go ice-skating that Merlin begged him to decline. Merlin helpfully caught a cold that was hell to deal with but at least meant they could skip the class trip to the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, but he still brought home pictures and straw stars and window decorations, and they weren’t even halfway through the month by the time Arthur started wondering if he’d signed the boy up for a school or a crafts camp.

At least the cookies were good. Every time Merlin brought home a bag, they ended up sprawled on the couch after Freya had left, Merlin with hot cocoa and Arthur with the largest mug of coffee they had in the house, getting crumbs all over themselves and the cushions while they watched the Star Wars Christmas special. It was shit, but at least it had Boba Fett in it.

It also kept Merlin’s whining about his stuffy nose and sore throat and green snot to a minimum, and every so often he’d actually fall asleep leaning against Arthur’s shoulder, and Arthur would rescue his mug before it tipped over and not hate the entire Christmas season quite as much as he usually did.

 

Friday before the holiday, Arthur was pretty much the last person left in the office at one o’clock, and so he gave Freya a ring and went to get Merlin himself. It was more than a little gratifying, after spending what felt like forever standing outside the school gates with a handful of other shivering parents, to see Merlin’s eyes light up when he caught sight of Arthur. He wasn’t wearing a coat, even, the brat, but he did walk into Arthur’s side and rest his head against Arthur’s stomach for a moment before he pulled away.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Where’s Freya?”

“At home, I assume,” Arthur said. “I thought we could go to the Christmas Market on the South bank.” He ruffled Merlin’s hair. “I’d suggest ice skating, but I happen to like your head attached.”

“Funny,” Merlin said. “Can we go if I promise to only crash into you? Would that make you feel better?”

Arthur shook his head, doubtful. "I'd feel a lot better if you'd put on your coat, actually," he said. "The last thing I need is Mithian breathing down my neck because you managed to contract pneumonia."

"But I'm not cold!" Merlin flapped his arms, perhaps to prove his point, but mostly he looked like a freezing idiot.

"Coat," Arthur said, and Merlin rolled his eyes and went to put it on.

They did go ice skating in the end, on the rink at the Eye, and Merlin miraculously wasn’t that bad at it. Oh, he fell all the time, but from what Arthur could tell, he wasn’t much worse than any of the other kids wobbling around the enclosure. Plus, he tried his damnedest to keep his promise, smacking into Arthur at every opportunity, and once Arthur had stopped rolling his eyes and then stopped being annoyed, it was actually kind of funny.

“Hey,” Merlin said at some point, when Arthur had narrowly yanked him out of the way of an overzealous teenage show-off. “Can we go again on Christmas?”

Arthur shook his head. “We’re going to Morgana’s for Christmas,” he said. “Family tradition.”

Merlin turned away, but not before Arthur caught a glimpse of his grimace.

“Hey,” he said, firmly annoyed again. “It won’t be that bad. Perhaps you’ll even enjoy yourself if you stop being so determined to suffer.”

Merlin attempted a pitiful smile. “Sure,” he said. “Sounds like fun.”

 

The plan was to head over to Morgana's house after a light lunch - spaghetti and pesto, because Arthur's culinary skills may only be improving slowly, but they were improving. Morgana was the one responsible for providing the lavish Christmas dinner to impress their parents. Arthur would have felt bad for her, but since she insisted on hosting the get-together every year, really, she brought it on herself.

They'd been celebrating Christmas at hers ever since Morgana bought the place. Arthur didn't mind - his own residences never lived up to the opulence Morgana and Vivienne, at least, favoured, and he suspected that having the celebrations on her own turf gave Morgana a sense of control she so desperately craved. Having Arthur usurp her place as the family darling and steal her father away in one go, he suspected, had left a bit of emotional damage she was still struggling to work through thirty years later. If she could assuage all that by showing off her lavishly decorated tree in her impeccably decorated living room, Arthur was more than fine with it.

Unfortunately, Christmas on Morgana's terms also meant being dressed to the nines, because Heaven forbid anybody wear anything comfortable for the holidays. Arthur generally got through it by pretending it was another business function to get through – which said a lot about his family, come to think of it – but Merlin eyed the ensemble laid out for him with a mix of horror and disdain.

"You cannot be serious," he all but whined. "I thought this was supposed to be _fun_."

Arthur smiled wryly. He knotted his tie with the practiced movements of someone who'd done so every day that he could remember, and said, "I have no idea how you came to that conclusion."

"Arthur," Merlin pleaded.

"It's a shirt and a tie, Merlin," Arthur said. "Just put them on. They're not going to hurt you, I promise."

"It's a _tie_ ," the kid said. He gathered the clothes up looking like he wanted to detour straight to the bin instead. "Christmas is about love and family and all that rot, not Project Runway."

Arthur thought about telling him that it was a family tradition to substitute love and attention with things, but figured that was a bit callow, even for him.

"We can look good and feel good at the same time," he said instead. "They're not mutually exclusive."

Merlin rolled his eyes on his way out the door.

"I saw that!" Arthur yelled after him.

"You were supposed to!" Merlin yelled back, matching his tone almost perfectly, and disappeared before Arthur could come up with a suitable reply.

 

Merlin, when he had climbed out of Arthur’s car in Morgana’s extensive driveway, took one look at the house and gulped. “I thought we didn’t live in castles anymore,” he said.

Arthur handed the kid a bottle of Littorai Chardonnay. “Chin up,” he said. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

 

To be fair, the kid tried. He sketched a stiff bow in front of where Morgana was draped decoratively on the couch and thrust the bottle of wine at her. He even gave Uther a sharp nod before he ran away, ostensibly to the washroom. When he came back ten minutes later short a tie and with his hair all mussed, Arthur wearily gave up on decorum. He pulled the kid against his side and laid his arm around Merlin’s shoulders.

“Two hours, okay?” he whispered to him. “Then we can go.”

“Since now? Or since we got here?” Merlin raised meaningful eyebrows. “Because it’s been at least, um, five minutes.”

“Since now,” Arthur said. He tried not to laugh too obviously when Merlin’s expression drooped, and steered the boy over to the minibar, where Vivienne was hogging the bartender’s services.

He wasn’t surprised that Morgana had hired a private bartender for what was supposedly a family dinner, nor that the man was stunningly attractive. He also wasn’t surprised that Vivienne seemed disinclined to leave the comforts of just-barely-still-fashionable inebriation, although Merlin’s open-mouthed gape reminded him that perhaps the Pendragon way wasn’t entirely normal for everybody.

Still, he leaned in to kiss his stepmother’s cheek in greeting before he turned to the barkeep. “Beer, if you’ve got it,” he said. “And something non-alcoholic for the sprog.”

“You’re a twat,” Merlin said, but he didn’t complain when Arthur lifted him onto one of the barstools. He didn’t even comment when Arthur, having learned from the past, kept a firm hand on the scruff of his shirt. He had absolutely no desire to spend Christmas day at the A&E.

“Is this the boy?” Vivienne asked. She was a beautiful woman, pale and ethereal even with the glassy sheen of alcohol to her eyes. The smell of it on her breath still made Arthur cringe a little.

“Yep,” he said, affecting a cheerful tone. “This is Merlin. Merlin,” he turned the kid to face her by the shoulders, “my stepmother Vivienne.”

“Hello,” Merlin said. He gave her a shy nod, the likes of which Arthur had never seen on him. No matter who they encountered, Merlin seemed to decide whether or not he liked them almost _before_ they even met. He immediately either liked them or he hated them, and he left no doubt as to which way the decision had gone.

With Vivienne, it was almost as if Merlin was actually faced with a stranger. He gave her a curious look, and a polite expression that was probably mostly for Arthur’s benefit. Then he turned towards Arthur and leaned into his shoulder just far enough that he could hide his face in it - but not so far that he might have to give up the act of being oh so grown-up and mature.

 _He’s sweet,_ Vivienne mouthed at him.

Arthur smiled. It wasn’t exactly his adjective of choice, but yes, given the circumstances, he had to admit that Merlin was actually being what could be termed sweet. He rubbed at Merlin’s back while the barman mixed their drinks before gently urging him back onto his stool. When Vivienne’s attention was momentarily derailed by her empty glass, he leaned in close and said, voice low, “You wanna check the telly? Make the time go faster?”

With a grateful smile, Merlin slid off his seat. Arthur caught his glass before it could tip and spill all over the bar, and handed it down when the boy was safely on two feet.

Telly would be good. It’d distract Merlin from Arthur’s mess of a family, and it’d distract _Arthur_ from Arthur’s mess of a family, and perhaps they could all go home without politely worded insults and stony silences.

 

He’d expected his family to rebel when Merlin asked to put on a Blue Peter rerun, but they didn’t. Morgana seemed especially keen on doing ‘normal’ things for Merlin’s benefit – Arthur didn’t have the heart to tell her that Merlin was about as far from normal as a child could possibly be – and Uther apparently actually wanted to watch the show, citing nostalgia. Apparently he’d spend quite a few Christmas days in front of the telly as a child, with both his parents at work. It was odd to be reminded that his father was a blue-collar child of blue-collar parents who’d worked himself up to the wealth he had now, and the reminders were few but jarring every time. His father, as well-known as he was for being one of the richest men in the country, had started with next to nothing. Vivienne was the one with the title and the estate, and every so often she reminded everyone of the fact that she was old money and her husband was new money, and that there were certain differences there that could never be erased.

Arthur assumed she hadn’t minded at one time, considering she married him – twice – but ever since he could remember, there had been snide looks and pointed-but-pleasant comments on the matter. Never aimed at him, because Vivienne might not be the most accepting spouse but she was never a cruel stepmother, but he was not at all surprised when she pursed her lips irritably at the reminder.

Still, she settled on the couch next to her husband and gestured at the gigantic flat-screen. “Are we going to watch, then?” she said.

They watched. Merlin, wary of spilling his cranberry concoction on Morgana’s cream-coloured sofa, settled on the floor in the general vicinity of Arthur’s armchair. Morgana and their parents settled on the couches. There was too much space for the atmosphere to truly be cosy, but there was an enormous, utterly tasteful tree in the corner, and after a while the bartender retreated to the kitchen to prepare dinner, and even if it wasn’t what Arthur would have chosen for himself on Christmas day, it was actually kind of… nice.

 

“Well, that was – charming,” Morgana said, once the credits were rolling.

Merlin, who’d spent most of the rather terrible show staring at the screen with an intensity that Arthur had never seen before, flinched. Considering the overall quality of the programme, or lack thereof, Arthur suspected the kid had been having his own nostalgic moment, and he had to bite his lip to keep from snapping at Morgana about it. He settled for a silent glare instead.

She returned it, uncomprehending and annoyed, before her gaze drifted down to Merlin. Then there was a flicker of guilt, which of course only lasted for a moment. Then her face smoothed over and she said, "I believe it's time for presents," and got to her feet in one fluid movement.

Excepting a cautious smile from Merlin, she didn't garner much of a reaction. They'd stopped exchanging gifts a while ago - once it became painfully obvious they were all wealthy enough to buy anything they might want, although the fun had gone out of it years before that, when Uther and Vivienne decided they were too old to keep pretending they were delighted by arts and crafts. This year, because of Merlin, Morgana had declared an exception, but she'd simultaneously reiterated her lack of interest in receiving anything for herself, so Arthur wasn't all that clear on how she expected this to go.

Their parents looked equally lost, an expression entirely at odds with the poised way they occupied the couch, and their elegant outfits. Arthur shrugged in their direction and earned helpless looks in return.

Morgana, annoyance tinting her features, held up a hand. “I’ll start, then,” she said. She left the room, heels clacking on the floor, leaving the rest of them behind in the awkward silence she’d created.

“I think she means ‘present,’” Vivienne finally said, hushed.

Arthur’s father nodded.

Arthur shrugged again, despite Vivienne’s displeased look. She liked elegance and poise, and shrugging did not qualify. But then Arthur liked knowing what on Earth was going through Morgana’s head, and he never got what he wanted there, so why should anyone?

A quick, furtive tug at his knee got his attention. “I thought we already had presents,” Merlin whispered.

Arthur reached out to squeeze his shoulder. The kid was technically too far away, but Arthur managed, just barely.

The boy had a point, too. He and Arthur had unwrapped presents that morning, including that from Arthur’s parents – a beautiful book on Greek mythology that was far too expensive for a kid of Merlin’s age and clumsiness, but something Merlin had admired nonetheless. Arthur didn’t think he cared about myths in general as much as he did the King Arthur legends, but he still applauded his parents for trying to expand the boy’s horizons.

“Guess there’s more,” Arthur told him.

As it turned out, Vivienne was right: It wasn’t ‘more presents’ so much as it was ‘one more present,’ and it was very specifically for Merlin. Arthur just barely managed not to roll his eyes at Morgana’s histrionics when she returned, smiled widely at the kid, and handed him a large box with bright red wrapping paper and an enormous silver bow on top.

Merlin stared at it like no one had ever given him a present before.

“Go on then, open it,” Morgana urged. Arthur had only rarely seen her looking that pleased with herself, and never in relation to children. Merlin didn’t look like he quite believed it, either. He shifted closer to Arthur’s feet on the carpet, but he didn’t take his eyes off the gigantic box, and Arthur couldn’t blame him.

When Merlin, after Arthur gave him a little nudge, started in on the wrapping, Arthur turned to Morgana with a pleasant smile fixed firmly on his face.

“That had better not be a puppy,” he hissed at her.

Morgana, with an angelic smile, replied, “Oh Arthur, live a little.”

It was not a puppy. In fact, it was possibly worse than a puppy. It was a bright orange plastic dragon that shuffled around when activated and alternately let out a tiny roar or proclaimed, “ _It is your destiny!_ ” when you pressed a hidden button. Which Merlin did, repeatedly, eyes wide and shining with delight. The dragon was apparently part of the “Arthur’s Adventures” SuperToy™ series. Arthur quietly started calculating how long he had to wait before he could accidentally smash the thing with a sledgehammer without breaking Merlin’s heart.

At least Morgana had the brains to talk him into leaving it under the tree when they all adjourned to the dining room for dinner. Merlin held his cutlery stiffly, nervousness making him far clumsier – and thus making the situation far harder to bear – than usual, and jumped even when someone passed the basket of rolls down the table or Arthur leaned in close to top up his glass with juice.

Mostly he kept quiet, though, eyeing Arthur and his family with wide eyes, silently listening in on whatever safe topics they could usually come up with – politics, the economy, global warming. Anything that wasn’t Vivienne gripping the neck of the champagne bottle tightly, or Uther failing to even acknowledge her behaviour, or Morgana’s sharp-tongued commentary, or Arthur adopting a child without so much as an email notification. All was perfectly pretend-peachy in the land of the Pendragons, and Arthur resolved firmly to make sure Merlin got at least two helpings of dessert for watching his family politely dance around personality and opinions without so much as a single comment.

Merlin didn’t realize the two hours had long since passed until they were in the middle of dinner, and although he shot Arthur a hilarious glare, he did seem to have enough manners to know that they couldn’t pack up and leave halfway through the second course.

“Soon,” Arthur promised him. He was actually hoping himself to be able to get away before anyone started to question him on his decision regarding Merlin. There were bound to be some critical comments, and he really didn’t want Merlin to be present for that kind of grilling. The kid had enough issues as it was.

 

He had positive qualities, too. Arthur was deeply impressed when Merlin not only stuck it out until after dessert but even managed to sit quietly on the couch afterwards. He was even more impressed when, despite the looks he was earning from the rest of his family, nobody was crass enough to mention the whole ‘Arthur fosters a kid’-thing in front of said kid. Apparently even Pendragon dysfunction only went so far before it ran headfirst into the wall of good manners.

He didn’t realize he’d just been leaning against the wall, staring at the kid, until Vivienne touched his wrist with light fingers and a soft smile. “Would you like a drink?”

Arthur shot a look at the kid visibly drooping on the couch. “I think it’s time to go, actually,” he said. “Thank you, though. I’ll see if we can’t swing by one of these days.”

She nodded slowly, her smile just a shade shy of wistful. “It’s exciting, isn’t it?” she asked. “Raising a child. Ha. Heart failure is nothing compared to losing a toddler in a shopping centre for the first time.”

“Something to look forward to, then,” Arthur said faintly.

She grinned at him with a wickedness he wasn’t used to from her but certainly explained where Morgana got it, and Arthur smiled back at her. It wasn’t often they had meaningful conversations like this. He’d grown up around her, yes, but distantly; she’d been perfectly civil to him, but he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be constantly reminded that she hadn’t been good enough to keep Uther’s attention in the end. And Arthur had spent too much time being reminded of his beautiful, wonderful, singular mother to ever accept another woman as a substitute.

So even though he’d known her for quite a while, he could count the moments he’d classify as ‘intimate’ between them on one, maybe two hands. He’d missed out, he decided when she reached out and squeezed his hand in commiseration. Something to change in the future.

 

Considering Merlin was practically asleep on his feet, their goodbyes were brief – a handshake from his father, a kiss on the cheek from his sister and Vivienne. Merlin, despite leaning into Arthur’s legs with his eyes barely open, endured similar treatment before they managed, among waves and last minute orders and reminders called across the driveway, to escape to the car.

Arthur waited in the front seat until Merlin had buckled himself in with exhaustion-clumsy fingers before he started the car. The streets were quiet, not only in Morgana’s posh little neighbourhood but also on the drive over to their own. Apparently very few people could be moved to actually go places on Christmas, which was just fine with Arthur – he’d had quite enough human interaction for one day.

At a red light, Arthur glanced over his shoulder. Merlin sat slumped against the window, his dragon in his lap. He fiddled with it absently, stroking over its plastic wings and bending the moveable limbs.

Arthur smiled in spite of himself. “Did you have a good time tonight?” he asked.

Merlin scrunched up his nose, considering, then he reached under the dragon’s wing.

“ _It is your destiny_!” the dragon roared.

Arthur snickered. The light turned green and he eased the car forward. “Still scared of Morgana?” he said.

“ _Raaahhh!_ ,” went the dragon.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Arthur mumbled. He set the signal and pulled the car into the turning lane. The arrow turned red before he got there, of course. Arthur, tiring of the glances into the mirror, turned in his seat to look at Merlin over the edge of his seat. “Seriously, though,” he said. “Morgana – she’s not all that bad, is she? Now that you’ve met her properly?”

Merlin tilted his head back against the headrest of his car seat. He eyed Arthur for a moment through mostly-closed eyes before he mumbled, “She was nice in the beginning.”

Arthur frowned. “Was she not nice later?” he asked. Perhaps she’d said something during dinner that the kid had interpreted badly – she had a habit of rubbing people wrong, one that Arthur barely even noticed anymore because he had, after all, grown up with her.

“Light’s green,” was all Merlin had to say to that.

Cursing, Arthur twisted in his seat and hit the gas. He barely made it across the deserted street on the orange light, his movements erratic and his mood sinking.

When he remembered to look at the kid in the mirror, Merlin had his eyes closed. His head was lolling to the side at an uncomfortable angle, and the dragon had slid halfway off his lap.

 

Merlin jerked awake when they pulled into the driveway, mumbling unintelligibly. With his toy clutched to his chest, he let Arthur usher him into the house. He scrubbed his toothbrush through his mouth a handful of times and pulled on his pyjamas with vague, lacklustre movements, which appeared to be the extent of all the energy he had left. Stuck halfway between annoyed and amused, Arthur walked the boy into his room and nudged him to get him to crawl under the covers Arthur had lifted in invitation.

He didn’t realize Merlin was still holding fiercely onto the toy until he went to pull the blanket up to the boy’s chin, but when he went to set it aside, Merlin shook his head.

“I’d miss him,” he said, although Arthur could have sword it sounded like, ‘I missed him,’ instead.

“Suit yourself,” Arthur said. Far be it from him to prevent Merlin from sleeping with a hard plastic toy with ridges and bumps and sharp edges. “You good for the night?”

Merlin nodded slowly. He turned his head to the side, regarding the lamp on the nightstand for a moment, before he said, “Maybe she _is_ different here.”

Arthur had no idea what to make of that statement, and was about to say as much when Merlin burrowed the back of his head deeper into the crease of his pillow and offered him a sleepy smile. A wave of tenderness crashed over Arthur at the sight, a burst of affection exploding in his chest that he hadn’t even known he was capable of feeling, and he prodded the boy’s nose and smiled back.

Arthur brushed a few hairs off of Merlin’s forehead, then he switched off the lamp and got up to go. “Goodnight, Merlin,” he said.

“ _Raaahhh!_ ”

“You are an odd child,” Arthur told him on his way out the door.

“ _It is your destiny_!” the dragon bellowed after him.

 

“What are you working on?” Arthur asked, trying to elbow Merlin’s piles of papers and notebooks spread out on the kitchen table into enough of an order that he could put down the pot of spaghetti in his hands.

Merlin – absently and ineffectively – moved to help, pushing a book aside with one hand without ever looking away from his essay. “Ms. Miller wants us to write thank you cards for our Christmas presents,” he said. He smirked a little bit, which was quite disconcerting on such a little kid. “Parents and grandparents, _at least_.”

“Right.” With a sigh, Arthur set the pot down on a chair and gathered up Merlin’s mess. The paper with his aborted drafts ended up at the very top, crossed out sentence after crossed out sentence after crossed out sentence. “Not getting anywhere, I take it?”

The boy shook his head. “She didn’t say what to do in my case,” he said. “Maybe I should write them anyway so she can’t not pass me.” He snickered. “’Dear mummy – I would have had a great Christmas with you if you weren’t dead.’”

It was callous enough that Arthur could feel his eyebrows climbing, but he remembered his own resentment at his mother for dying when he’d grown old enough to realize what having one around actually meant; packed lunches and homework help and easy affection and no pitying looks from his classmates.

So he shuffled Merlin’s papers onto a different chair and said, lightly, “Do you remember her at all?”

“Not really,” Merlin said. “Not this time. But I know what she was like before.”

Arthur translated that to mean that Merlin was blithely making things up, but he figured the topic was touchy enough without rubbing Merlin’s nose in it. Instead, he returned to the sauce still on the stove. He was getting better at cooking, even if it was still mostly pasta, but getting several dishes done at the same time was something he was still trying to get the hang of.

At least he’d remembered to take his white shirt off before facing a pot full of tomato puree, this time.

“What was she like, then?” he asked. “Your mother.”

Merlin made a little noise behind him. “Brave,” he said. “And nice. She did everything for everybody but she never let anybody bully her.”

When Arthur glanced back at him over his shoulder, Merlin’s mouth had twisted into a wry smile. He’d pulled up a worksheet, something about biology that apparently required him to pick the right animal out of a line-up, and was now looking it over with a sort of fascinated boredom. “She wanted me to have an education,” Merlin said, as he gamely picked up a pencil. “Not sure this is what she had in mind.”

Arthur felt a familiar clench in his gut, one that always came when he was reminded of his own mother – not the invocations of her name that happened daily with a charity that had never even occurred to her, but the real, living, breathing woman who’d been wonderful enough to entice his father away from his high society wife and his two overachieving daughters. He had no memory of her, just as Merlin had to have very little of his own, but sometimes he figured her theoretical approval would still mean a whole lot more to him than that of many a living, breathing person.

He stirred the sauce with a little more force than necessary until he’d gathered himself together enough to remember that they were talking about Merlin’s mother, and not Arthur’s. “She sounds like a lovely lady.”

Merlin nodded. He drew a determined circle around the seal, and then said, “She always wanted what’s best for me. Even if it wasn’t the best for her.”

“Do you think she would approve of me?” Arthur asked. He tried to keep the question light, just a bit of teasing, but he had to admit it wasn’t working so well.

Merlin didn’t look up. “She liked you,” he said.

Arthur turned his head to give him a look. “Would have,” he prompted.

“Yeah,” the kid said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Goes to show what she knows.”

 

Arthur’s parenting classes had informed him that eight-ish was the point at which children developed their own likes and dislikes, and Merlin very clearly liked legends. Arthurian legends. He scoffed at the fictionalized ones and spent most of their attempt at watching the Disney movie muttering disdainfully to himself, but he practically slept with his story book under his pillow, and when he wasn’t reading that, he was making up stories himself.

Arthur had been genuinely surprised to find out that the kid was actually quite a gifted storyteller. The wording itself was that of a child's, of course, but everything he talked about had monsters, schemers, mortal enemies, last minute rescues, hypocrisy and deceit. It was great.

Arthur, in turn, seemed to always get everything wrong whenever he tried to join in, so he resigned himself to asking leading questions and letting Merlin have all the creative decisions.

And creative he was. Everything turned into a story. Waiting for the tube in the morning led to a story about horses. Mentions of Arthur’s father were followed by stories about witch hunters. A long-avoided visit to the dentist prompted a story about a mysterious illness sweeping the land, and a white-haired physician who tried his best to save them.

They all, predictably, starred Merlin as Merlin the sorcerer and Arthur as King Arthur, but Arthur didn’t mind that. It was like a serial, learning about someone’s life in snippets and pieces until it was almost as familiar as one’s own.

Most of Merlin’s stories were good – some were just too depressing for Arthur to really enjoy – but Arthur’s favourites were the ones about Camelot. He liked the ones about hunting, or quests, or epic battles with other kingdoms, but the tales about the castle were the ones he loved, relished, would sometimes request to hear again. The servants, the nobles, the knights. Little of it was glamorous, and Arthur himself rarely came off well, but he usually had his noble moments and Merlin made sure to always save the day with a bit of magic, and Arthur had always been a sucker for a happy ending.

“You know,” Arthur said, when a trip back from the co-op for that night’s spaghetti sauce had turned into a long, meandering story about rats, “you have quite the imagination for such a little kid.”

Merlin nodded. "I've lived a long life."

He said it so quietly, so unassuming, that the words barely even registered with Arthur at first. But yes, he had a point. Compared to some of his peers, Merlin was practically ancient – in temperament, if not in body.

“I haven’t,” Arthur said, gently teasing. “I’m not even thirty.”

He’d expected Merlin to react incredulously at that, tell him what an old geezer he was at twenty-nine, but instead, Merlin’s face turned solemn.

“No, you didn’t,” he said.

Arthur mulled that over for a moment. “So I at thirty am basically still a grasshopper, but you at eight have lived a long and fulfilled life?”

Merlin rolled his eyes for a moment, nudging Arthur’s thigh in reproof. “A thousand and eight,” he said quietly. “More or less.”

Arthur pursed his lips to keep from laughing. “You’ll have to tell me what anti-aging cream you use, then.”

He was fairly sure Merlin knew he was being made fun of, but the boy didn’t respond in kind, just nodded. “The magic helped,” he said. “Not at first, of course, but after – afterwards, it helped a lot.”

"Right," Arthur said, grinning. He nudged him with his knees. "Lead on then, court sorcerer."

"I was never a court sorcerer," Merlin said.

Arthur surged forward, jamming his fingers into the boy's sides to hear him squawk. "How remiss of me," he said. “Clearly, I was a bit of a twat at the time.”

Merlin laughed again, breathless. When Arthur glanced at his face, his eyes shone with an adoration that had Arthur’s stomach in flurries, and not necessarily in a good way. He wasn’t sure he liked being the object of that much admiration. Merlin, youth aside, looked like he would lay his life down for Arthur if Arthur only commanded it, and Arthur wasn’t sure he knew how to deal with that.

 

The tube was usually packed full in the mornings out where they lived. Not packed, but crowded enough that it was a relief when St. Paul’s had some sort of function or other - Freya explained, but Arthur wasn't really paying attention - and they could go in an hour later than usual.

Arthur flopped down on an empty seat with relish. Merlin, because he was a little freak that couldn’t enjoy the good things in life, stayed standing by the doors, reading signs he'd read a million times before and fiddling with his uniform.

Their carriage was nearly deserted, so it took Arthur longer than it really should have to notice the two boys loitering around their golden-haired mother. In fact, they were almost all the way to Merlin’s stop when Arthur, catching sight of the emblem on the boys’ jackets, leaned forward to catch the woman’s eye. “I was beginning to think I was the only one doing the school run by the tube,” he said with an easy smile. She was quite pretty, so it wasn’t like it was a hardship.

She looked up, slightly startled, but smiled herself a moment later. It was gratifying to know he hadn’t completely lost his touch.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “It can be a pain, no doubt about it. I wouldn’t want to drive, though. I don’t know how everybody else does it.”

“Slowly, I imagine,” Arthur said.

It made her burst out laughing; a honking, snorting kind of laugh that was uniquely charming in how well it suited her, but it made Arthur’s brows rise regardless.

When she boxed his shoulder, it actually hurt. “Not for me, I don’t think. They’d all flee the moment they saw me coming.” She grinned at Arthur, who tried very hard not to rub. “I’m a menace behind the wheel.”

“Lovely to meet you,” he said wryly. “I’m Arthur.”

“Oh, of course.” She held out her hand. “Elena. These are my boys,” she added, pulling the younger between her legs. “This is Galahad, and that’s Geraint.”

“Merlin,” Arthur replied, waving a hand at the kid.

“Well, he’s a bit of a dreamer, isn’t he?” she said.

Considering Merlin, instead of interacting with Geraint, was fidgeting with the seat cushions and whispering to himself, Arthur had to agree with her. He didn’t like it, but he did.

Elena didn’t seem to mind, at least – in fact, she sounded rather charmed by the kid’s lack of social skills. Arthur was a little disappointed to find out she already had a boyfriend – a “long-term life partner with no need to slap a label on it” – but it was nice enough to talk to someone in a similar boat as he was in, juggling work and child-rearing and a _life_. She got off with her sons at Swiss Cottage, like Merlin did, and promised to leave her number with Merlin on the way. “Maybe you two and my boys could meet up for footie sometime,” she said. “I think you’d get along.”

“Sounds great,” Arthur said. The train slowed, the dark tunnel exchanged for the brick of the station. “Have fun,” he told Merlin, leaning up. Merlin dutifully kissed his cheek. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Merlin rolled his eyes, as usual.

At least Elena laughed. “I think you and my not-husband will get along splendidly,” she said. The doors slid opened, and she ushered all three of the boys out. “See ya, Arthur.”

“I hope so,” Arthur replied automatically, waving through the closing doors.

 

Elena's not-husband's name was Gwaine, and it took Arthur approximately five seconds to figure out that he did not like him at all. They all met up to play football – or some approximate version of it, considering half their players were in primary school and terrible – at Hampstead Heath, Elena tripping through the grass in her ballet flats, and after about five minutes of Gwaine, Arthur started grinding his teeth so hard it hurt. Gwaine grated on him from the very first smarmy grin all the way to the overly solicitous way he passed the ball over to Merlin despite being on a different team when it became clear that Merlin sucked at football just as bad as ever. The kids were fine, and Elena's grin so hopeful Arthur grit his teeth and smiled back, but Arthur was _not_ going to be friends with someone who called him princess and offered to find him a bright pink ball if he'd prefer.

At least he kept his mouth shut when he was sprinting after the ball.

 

The first time Arthur got a call from the school, he was reading a recipe for risotto on his computer and contemplating calling for pizza, and almost fumbled his mobile off the kitchen table when it buzzed.

“Pendragon,” he said.

“Good evening,” a professionally polite voice greeted him. “Am I speaking to Mr. Arthur Pendragon?”

“Yes, this is he,” Arthur said. “Who’s this?”

“Mary Howden from St. Paul’s Primary,” was the reply, smooth and bland enough to raise all the hair on the back of Arthur’s neck. “There are some – concerns about Merlin that we’d like to discuss with you in person.”

“Concerns?” Arthur said, voice sharp.

“In person,” the disembodied voice reminded him.

“Um,” Arthur said, which was apparently code for, ‘Of course I’d love to come by, do let me know a date and time that is good for you,’ because two minutes later he an appointment with Merlin’s principal, a stern reminder to be there because the matter was quite delicate, and a dial tone.

Of course Merlin came barreling into the kitchen a moment later, yelling for juice, while Arthur was still frowning at the phone in his hand. The kid didn't notice his mood, too preoccupied with rifling through the fridge, and started when Arthur caught his arm.

“Sorry,” Arthur said, drawing back. "Everything okay at school?"

Merlin gave him a puzzled look. He could have been faking his innocence, of course, but Arthur liked to believe that he could tell when Merlin was lying by now, when he was guiltily shifty, and now he just looked confused.

"Don't worry about it," he said, before Merlin could ask, and nudged the boy aside. “What kind of juice did you want?”

 

Ms. Annis, the principal, had that sort of stern authority that had Arthur immediately feeling like _he_ was a student again, and in trouble, even though she was smiling at him.

"We like Merlin, we do," was her opening gambit, which had Arthur suspicious immediately.

He shifted on the hard wooden chair set opposite her desk and said, a little brusquely, "Then what's the problem?"

She pursed her lips with a sigh, picked up a pen only to drum it against the surface of her desk. “There are certain… behaviours of his that we have become concerned about.” She set the pen aside, abruptly, and laced her hands together. “Do you have an idea of what I might be talking about?”

Relief crawled up Arthur’s spine, hesitant but there. “You mean his stories.”

Her gaze flicked up to meet his. “Yes.”

“Ah.” Arthur waved her off. "It's a game."

Annis considered him. "Is it?"

"Yes," Arthur said slowly. "What else would it be?"

Annis sighed.

Arthur grit his teeth. Annoyance welled up sharply, like he wasn't a highly paid professional negotiator and used to talking to people who were clearly less informed than he was and still considered themselves superior. “If you have a different assessment, Ms. Annis, please.” He extended a beckoning hand. “Tell me.”

Her face tightened in annoyance, however faintly, something that Arthur really should not have been so pleased about.

“It’s not the stories so much, Mr. Pendragon, as the way he tells them. He doesn’t act like a little boy retelling tales or putting into words something he’s imagining. Merlin insists on these fantasies being the truth with a vehemence that is, quite frankly, a little disturbing."

“Right,” Arthur said slowly. He could feel the doubt creeping in, that all-too-familiar fear that every idea he had was wrong and he was a failure at everything he touched, but most of all, he felt disbelief. Couldn’t they have emailed him about this?

Annis leaned forward a little, eyes earnest. “We’re not trying to alienate you, Mr. Pendragon. Or Merlin. We’re simply trying to forestall any future problems. Merlin is a sweet boy, but he’s quite clearly had some traumatic events in his past, and imagining himself as an ancient, powerful hero is not so incomprehensible a coping mechanism.” She smiled a little. “Really, as out-of-control as a child with Merlin’s experiences must feel, it’s not so far-fetched at all, and he must have figured out at some point that fairy tales and myths are commonly accepted avenues for children to explore-“

"If you've quite finished psychoanalyzing my boy," Arthur said. Snapped. Whatever, she deserved it.

She hesitated, clearly caught off guard. It wasn't as satisfying as Arthur would have thought. Instead, it made him feel stupid and impulsive. Overzealous. He'd thought he'd gotten past letting people get to him like that.

Annis rallied. Into the uncomfortable silence, she said, "My goal was not to offer a psychiatric evaluation," she said. "Merely to point out a matter of concern to us."

She hesitated, and Arthur just _knew_ she was about to suggest a shrink for Merlin anyway. He stood abruptly, chairs legs scraping over the floorboards.

"Of course," he said. "I do appreciate you bringing your concerns to my attention."

Regret made the words stiff and unwieldy in his mouth. He shouldn't have been so rude to her. Yes, she'd wasted his time and hers, and insinuated ridiculous things, but she meant well. Making an enemy of Merlin's principal was a sickeningly stupid idea, not only because of Merlin but also because what she had to say mattered with Mithian. Arthur had enough obstacles in his way without adding a handful of his own making.

Merlin just made him feel so out of his depth all the time, and Arthur didn't seem able to do anything but overreact whenever the subject came up. At least most newly made parents had the time to get used to having a child while the kid was screaming and tiny and terrifying, and not when it was old enough to run away and argue and, apparently, develop delusions about being an ancient wizard destined to save the world.

"Thank you for your time," Arthur forced out. He held out his hand.

Annis shook it, still wearing that half-concerned, half-pitying expression, and Arthur made himself smile. He refused to let her see how much she'd rattled him.

"I hope," she said, and then broke off, thank God.

"Have a good weekend," Arthur said. He showed himself out.

 

Predictably, they got stuck in traffic on the drive back. Arthur had foolishly agreed to let the kid sit in front, hoping to keep a better eye on him, not remembering until it was too late that Merlin would take it as an invitation to chatter away. And he did, telling Arthur everything about his day and yesterday and the day before, most of which Arthur had already heard, before abruptly segueing into, “So what did Ms. Annis want?”

Arthur, sitting at a red light, closed his eyes firmly for a moment.

Merlin shifted in his seat. “Did she say anything bad about me? I mostly liked her so far. You know, I think I remember her-”

Arthur held up a hand. "Not right now, Merlin, please."

The boy fell silent. Arthur could feel his eyes on him, puzzled and a little hurt, and smiled tightly at the steering wheel.

"I'm not upset," he said, which was a blatant lie, but Merlin didn't need to know that. "I'm just not in the mood for playing right now."

Merlin was silent for a long time. "Playing?" he finally said.

“You know.” Arthur waved an impatient hand. “You’re a sorcerer, I’m a king, Morgana is an evil witch out to kill me. That whole bit.”

“Playing,” Merlin said.

Arthur gripped the steering wheel so tightly the leather creaked under his hands, and didn’t say anything.

 

Merlin unbuckled and pushed open his door before Arthur had even killed the engine, face thunderous. Arthur almost regretted giving him his own key when the kid unlocked the door and slipped inside, slamming it shut in Arthur’s face. At least he hadn’t gone far before Arthur let himself in, standing in the middle of the living room with his back to Arthur and his hands balled into tiny fists.

Arthur sighed. He dropped his keys onto the hall dresser with a clatter that made both of them flinch, unexpectedly jarring in the tense silence.

“I’m sorry if I made you upset,” Arthur said. He still didn’t have one bit of a clue what was going on here, but that seemed like a good place to start.

Merlin didn’t seem to agree – he shot Arthur a look so full of venom Arthur actually found himself recoiling a little bit, stung.

“You’re a liar,” the kid hissed at him. “You are a _liar_.”

“When have I ever lied to you?” Arthur asked. There were probably a few instances, but nothing that necessitated this kind of anger.

“All the time!” Merlin was getting louder now, turning to Arthur to let him feel the full force of Merlin’s wrath, Arthur supposed.

“About everything. _You said you believed me_.”

“What, about your fairy stories?” Arthur let out a tired chuckle. “Merlin, come on. What, you think you’re actually a thousand-year-old wizard? I’m the once and future king? You can’t honestly tell me you mean that.”

Judging by the way Merlin’s face fell, he did actually mean that. Aghast, Arthur stared at him, and Merlin stared back, chin trembling and nose red. When he blinked, two fat tears escaped and rolled down his cheeks. With an impatient, desperate noise, the boy swiped his palms hard across his eyes, raised his chin into the air, and gave Arthur a challenging look.

How was Arthur supposed to stay aloof in the face of that? "Merlin," he sighed, reaching for him.

He wasn't prepared for Merlin to yank sharply out of his grip.

"No!" The boy snapped, and fled for his room before Arthur could catch him again.

 

When Arthur finally went looking, Merlin was bright red from burrowing under the covers in the middle of the day, overheated as well as sulky. He batted at Arthur's hands when Arthur tried to uncover him, and when Arthur yanked the blanket off the bed entirely in his frustration, he pulled his pillow over his face instead.

"Don't - don't suffocate yourself, Christ." Arthur relieved him of that as well, leaving him with no option but to cross his arms and pout at the wallpaper instead.

Arthur sighed. "I'm sorry, alright? I shouldn't have snapped at you. I was a bit stressed, that's all."

Merlin grumbled something. Arthur wasn't sure they were actually supposed to be words, and he certainly didn't understand any of them.

"Come on, kid." He poked at Merlin's ribs, going for his ticklish spots. "Come ooon."

He thought he’d succeeded in getting the boy to unfurl, but instead, he leaned over the edge of the bed and pulled his pillow back into his arms, from the pile of bedding Arthur had abandoned it on. “You think I’m a liar,” he said, hugging it tightly to his chest.

“I do not!” Arthur forced himself to take a deep breath. “Listen, there’s nothing wrong with telling stories, okay? With games. That’s fun, isn’t it? Fun is totally okay.”

Apparently it wasn’t. Merlin’s face crumpled unhappily.

Arthur hid a wince. Clearly, his parenting skills lay elsewhere. Apparently he had no idea how to cheer Merlin up when Arthur himself was the bad guy. He couldn’t even in good conscience promise it would never happen again, but he could at the very least try to make amends.

"Come on." He waved a beckoning hand. "Tell me a story. We're, uh, we're in the woods, and there are bandits..."

"No," Merlin said.

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so there's a monster...?"

"No."

Arthur rolled his eyes to the heavens. "What, then?"

Merlin turned to hide his face in his pillow. "Nothing," he said, muffled.

“It’s clearly not ‘nothing.’” Arthur reached over to rub the boy’s shoulder. “Come on, tell me. What’s eating at you?”

Merlin pushed him off. “Nothing.”

 

“Oh, good,” Arthur said, when he peeked into the bathroom around nine and Merlin was already in front of the mirror, toothbrush in his mouth and foam leaking down his chin. “Don’t forget to floss,” he added after a moment, and reached past the kid to turn the tap off.

Merlin scowled. "Stop treating me like a child."

Arthur, torso still bent at an awkward angle, sighed. "You _are_ a child, Merlin."

"I'm not." Merlin gave him a serious look, but it still came off less grave and more petulant. "I have several centuries on you, you know."

"Ah yes." Arthur felt his mouth twist, not sure if he was going for amused or disgusted. He straightened, dried his hands on a towel. "You're an immortal wizard. I forgot."

Merlin didn't reply. When Arthur glanced down at him, he had his head bent low, hair obscuring his features, toothbrush still clasped loosely in one fist.

"Not immortal," the boy said after a while, quietly, like he knew arguing the point was pointless. "I was reborn, wasn't I?"

"Oh. Of course. I'm so sorry." With a light tug, Arthur freed the brush from Merlin's fingers and returned it to its glass. He was trying not to sound too sarcastic, but it was hard. "Phoenix wizard, of course, how could I get the two confused?"

"Stop it," Merlin said, very quietly.

"Or what? You'll turn me into a toad?"

"I should." Merlin looked up at him then, and his eyes were blazing. "You don't have to be such an arse about it."

Arthur's eyebrows listed of their own accord. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." The boy's expression grew steadily darker. "You've made it abundantly clear you don't believe me, but you don't have to mock me just because you don't remember."

“I will never be able to remember something you’ve made up,” Arthur said, stung.

Merlin threw his hands into the air. He pushed past Arthur violently, shoving him into the doorframe as he passed, and stomped down the stairs.

Arthur caught up with him in the living room. “I’d can the attitude if I were you, young man,” he said.

“Or what?” Merlin snapped, whirling around. He still had toothpaste on his chin. “You’ll take it out on a kid?”

“I thought you were an ancient wizard,” Arthur said, because he evidently had no idea when to leave well enough alone.

“I _am_!” Merlin yelled. His voice cracked. “You just don’t believe me.”

Arthur felt a smile curl at the corners of his mouth. “You’re a wizard.”

The kid pushed his jaw forward. “I’m _the_ wizard,” he said. “Merlin the sorcerer.”

"Okay. Fine." Arthur lifted expectant hands. "If you're such a great and powerful wizard, then prove it to me. Show me. Just a tiny bit of magic, it can’t be that hard."

"I _can't_ ," Merlin snarled at him. His voice was thick with tears. "You know I can't."

Arthur thought vaguely that perhaps he was supposed to hug him now, but the boy looked about as receptive to it as a hedgehog might, and Arthur really wasn’t the type to go around forcing affection on people, so he crossed his arms instead. "So I'm sure you can forgive my scepticism then."

Merlin's face crumpled. Rather than have Arthur see him fall apart, though, he covered his face with his hands and whispered something that might have been "I hate you," or might have been something else. It sent a nasty jab of something through Arthur's heart, though, and he felt his face grow cold. "Be that as it may," he said, "until you can back up your little story with some action, I'm going to take it with a grain of salt."

Merlin didn't look up.

Sighing, Arthur dropped to his knees on the carpet. “Merlin,” he said. “Kid. Come here.”

The boy shuffled closer. He didn’t resist when Arthur pulled him close, but he stayed stiff and uncooperative, and Arthur ignored that, just like he ignored the way the rejection stung. He lifted the boy into his lap, cradling him against his body, and sighed. “What am I going to do with you?” he whispered.

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, too, because Merlin pushed his arm away. “You don’t have to make it even harder than it already is.”

“I don’t want to make it harder,” Arthur said. “I want to make it easier. You just have to let me.”

Merlin didn’t seem to agree. “You just have to _believe me_ ,” he said.

“We’ve been over this,” Arthur reminded him, a sharp note creeping into his voice again. It was scary, knowing his kid, this child he’d come to care so much about, apparently had serious emotional issues, and knowing that Arthur himself didn’t have the first clue as to what to do about it.

“Let’s not fight,” he added. The anger was gone, now, replaced by something pleading. “Alright? I’m sure we can work things out together. Figure out the truth.”

“You don’t want to know the truth.”

Arthur tightened his grip on the boy. “Merlin.”

Merlin slumped against his chest with a quiet noise, tension draining out of him, but it didn’t feel relaxed. It felt like resignation.

 

In the end, Arthur called Drea who’d run one of his parenting classes, and she gave him the name of a child psychologist in Islington.

"He does psychiatric evaluations as well as behavioural therapy," she gushed, and Arthur could practically see the hearts in her eyes. "He's a bit on the alternative side, but he's really quite good."

He was also quite cheap, as Arthur found out when he rang Doctor Lancelot duLac's to make an appointment.

"It's because the doctor believes in making his care affordable to everyone who needs it, and not just those who can afford it," the secretary explained. She sounded as thrilled as Drea. Idly, Arthur wondered if she fancied the good doctor.

"Sounds like a regular white knight," he mumbled, and asked after evening appointments before she had a chance to chide him for it.

 

Arthur almost jumped out of his skin when he looked up from the newscast he had slumped down in front of and found Merlin standing next to him, face pale and jaw set.

“Hello,” he said, after a deep breath. Hope blossomed in his chest. Perhaps this was the beginning of the end of their strange stalemate, the unhappy mood that had been hanging over the house for days. It wasn’t hard to dredge up a smile. “Come sit.”

The boy did. He didn’t seem to care about Arthur very much at all, keeping his eyes fixed on the screen instead. Footage of burning streets was replaced by a news anchor sombrely listing body counts. Actually, Merlin should probably not be watching any of this, but it was too late now, anyway.

“What a world, huh?” Arthur said weakly.

Merlin glanced over at him. “Doesn’t it bother you?” he asked, when the show abandoned unrest in the Middle East to report on violence-overshadowed elections in central Africa instead. “To know that there are people out there, dying, and we’re just sitting around here, fat and happy?”

“Well, yes.” Arthur frowned. “Of course it does. But there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.”

Face twisting in distaste, Merlin pushed himself off the sofa. “You could,” he said. “You could do anything. You’d just have to _want_ to.” And then, with a huff, he stalked away.

Arthur stared after him. “You’re a little idealist, aren’t you?” he said, but Merlin was no longer around to hear him.

 

Doctor duLac was an unfairly attractive man with a charming smile and a head full of curls. He met them in the lobby of his fourth-floor practice and made a point of introducing himself to Merlin first before he reached out to shake Arthur’s hand.

“Let’s get you situated, hm?” he told the boy.

Merlin cast a doubtful look at Arthur. Arthur had to admit that while he wasn’t really cooperative, he also hadn’t sabotaged the proceedings, and his voice softened as he gave Merlin a nudge. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go take a look.”

Even if nothing else came from this visit, the validation Arthur got from duLac’s approving look would have made it worth it.

DuLac led them down the hall a ways, pausing in front of a playroom with a large window set into the hallway wall. Toys were scattered around inside – not very many, but something for everyone: books, coloured pencils, blocks, toy cars, stuffed animals. DuLac invited the boy to occupy himself before he closed the door and ushered Arthur into his office opposite.

“Right then,” he said, waving Arthur into a chair. “What seems to be the problem?”

 

Arthur had to give the doctor one thing – there was absolutely no censure in the man’s tone or expression. He listened to Arthur’s explanation without a single twitch, said “I see,” a handful of times, and then stood and held out his hand. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll have a chat with Merlin now, then.”

The doctor stopped him in front of the overlarge window. Peering in, Arthur saw that Merlin had sat down amidst the blocks and started stacking them into a crooked tower. He didn’t look like he was having a good time, and Arthur wasn’t sure why there was an entire room for him to hang around and be bored in. Couldn’t they just have left him up front with the receptionist?

Catching Arthur’s expression, duLac smiled. “How children interact with their toys tells us a lot about how they interact with the world around them.”

The kid hadn’t noticed them yet. He didn’t seem particularly absorbed, but he still didn’t look up from the construction, not even after he’d placed the very last block at the very top.

DuLac hummed.

Merlin, suddenly scowling, struck out at the tower without warning, sending it all tumbling to the ground.

Arthur turned to give Doctor duLac what was probably a horrified look. “Wait, so what does that mean?”

DuLac grinned toothily. “In my professional opinion, I’d say that what we are witnessing here is an early warning sign of an acute case of boredom. Please excuse me.”

And then he simply left Arthur standing there, jaw ticking with annoyance, while he went to figure out what was wrong with Arthur’s kid.

 

“You can sit down if you’d like,” the receptionist told Arthur eventually, when she walked past to find Arthur still standing abandoned in the corridor, staring at the door duLac had closed between them.

Arthur offered her a wan smile before he returned to the waiting room she’d pointed him to. He dropped down in a not-quite-comfortable chair and checked his phone. He answered two emails from subordinates and one from Ginns in Marketing, then he tucked it away again. He read a handful of health and fitness mags and a back-copy of CHESS before he gave in to the urge to drum his fingers against his knee. The receptionist glanced over but didn’t say anything, so he couldn’t be bothered to stop. He debated calling Morgana for a bit, but he hadn’t actually confided in her about Merlin and his story-telling... _issues_ yet, and he was in absolutely no mood to be judged right now.

When he heard steps in the hall, he bounced to his feet immediately, once again drawing a look from the receptionist. He didn’t care overly much, not when duLac was ushering Merlin back into the waiting room, looking tired but composed – both of them, actually, and Arthur was torn between embarrassment and pride. Pride that Merlin could get the better even of people whose very job it was to understand him, and not just clueless, underprepared idiots like Arthur.

“Here we are,” duLac said gamely. “Would you mind waiting for a moment while I have a chat with Arthur?”

He very pointedly did not say ‘father,’ Arthur thought. He wasn’t sure if that was something Merlin had protested or something duLac had figured out himself, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Merlin shrugged, brushing past Arthur on his way to the beanbag chair in the corner. Arthur watched him for a moment, the way his face was so incredibly blank, his movements tight and controlled.

When he glanced at duLac, the man was watching him.

“Shall we?” he asked.

 

“So.” Arthur drummed his fingers against the armrests of duLac’s visitor chair. “What’s wrong with him?”

DuLac grimaced. “There’s nothing _wrong_ with Merlin, Arthur, please don’t think like that.” When Arthur nodded curtly, he said, “He does, as expected, carry some scars with him – the loss of his mother, the uprooting he experienced, the not-quite-ideal conditions of the group home with other children similarly at sea.” He smiled a little. “But I can assure you, all those traumas are quite normal and expected, considering Merlin’s history.”

“No, the-“ Arthur waved a finger at his own head. “With the stories.”

“Ah, yes.” duLac shuffled some papers.

Arthur braced himself.

The doctor slipped the disorderly stack into a folder and the folder into a drawer before he leaned forward in his chair and drew his shoulder back.

“Quite honestly, Mr. Pendragon?” he said. He looked Arthur straight in the eye. “Merlin is fine. He’s an imaginative little boy who’s gone through a lot in a very short life, and he’s dealing with it the only way he knows how.” He shrugged a little, losing some of his stern demeanour. “Compared to some of his peers, he’s actually dealing with it fairly well. He’s not violent, he’s not even particularly unworldly, and right now – and bear in mind that I’m losing business by saying this – I really don’t see how meeting with me will benefit him unless he starts becoming less willing to interact socially rather than more.”

When Arthur frowned at him, duLac reached out to pat his arm. “It’s a good thing, Merlin telling you his stories,” he said. “And you’re doing fine. Let him tell you what’s on his mind, make sure he interacts with the real world as much as possible, and if the school keeps giving you grief, for God’s sake, find him another one.”

 

For half-term, Arthur, exhausted and wrung out, booked them both a trip to the Mediterranean where the most dangerous business Merlin could get up to is tripping over sandcastles. He did manage to cut his feet open on a couple of stones and burned his nose to peeling even though Arthur slathered him in sunscreen at every available opportunity, but at least they both lived to tell the tale.

Merlin fell asleep on Arthur’s shoulder on the way back, chest pressing against his arm on every inhale. Arthur refrained from rolling his eyes at the flight attendant’s sappy smile, but he still tucked the kid under his arm and didn’t move until they were ready to land, even though he had to use the loo so badly it hurt.

 

It was the day after they got back, when Arthur had dropped Merlin off at school and was getting his morning fix at the coffee shop on the corner when he saw her. She was over by the milk and sugar, a paper cup clutched in one hand and a laptop bag in the other, contorting herself to keep the file folder under her arm from slipping. She looked like she was debating whether to drop her coffee or her computer, and nobody around her seemed to care.. With a shake of his head, Arthur abandoned his place at the front of the – very long – line and walked over, took drink and laptop out of her hands and smiled when she looked up at him with a startled expression.

“Thank you so much,” she told him once she had gotten her folder under control and safely tucked into the computer case. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“It was no problem,” Arthur assured her. “I couldn’t just leave you to your plight.”

Her smile made Arthur’s throat go a little dry. “And here I was, thinking chivalry was dead,” she teased.

Arthur can feel a blush staining his cheeks.

“But since these are modern times and all, could I get your drink? You just rescued me, after all.”

“I’d love to,” Arthur said regretfully, “But with the line this long, I wouldn’t be able to make it to work on time.”

“That’s too bad.” She looked like she meant it. “But it was nice meeting you.”

“You too.”

There was an awkward shuffle when she tried to shake his hand and he tried to hand back her drink, but with a little nervous chuckling and eye rolling, their fingers managed to meet somewhere in the middle.

“I’m Sophia,” she said with a sweet smile.

“Arthur,” he replied. He resisted the urge to kiss her hand and started to walk away instead, already kicking himself.

“Arthur!”

When he turned, heartbeat kicking up a notch, she was scribbling something on a business card before she held it out with two fingers.

“Here,” she said. “Perhaps you’d like to have a drink sometime.”

 

By the next day, Arthur knew that Sophia was the best thing to have happened to him since the Battersea charity function. She was brilliant and funny and drop-dead gorgeous, and she seemed to be as taken with him as Arthur was with her. He broke one of his own cardinal rules and texted her while in the office, and when he was on break, and when he was walking home from the tube, and then spent an hour on the phone with her after dinner when Merlin was tucked up in bed.

He hadn’t had more than a handful of weeklong flings since Maria after getting his Masters, some three, four years ago now, and he’d almost forgotten how it felt, that _zing_ of mutual attraction. He’d never had to plan around a child before, so that bit was new, but Sophia didn’t seem to mind and Merlin didn’t know, and Arthur was more than content to leave it at that for a while.

 

“What are you doing?” Arthur asked Merlin, settling down on the couch next to him after his usual song and dance with Freya on his way in and her way out.

The kid showed him; he’d uncovered one of Arthur’s old photo albums, pictures yellowed and cracked, that he kept in the living room next to his books and games. He hadn’t gotten very far, yet, just a few pages in, gaze flickering over landscape shots of the Scottish highlands, a log cabin with mountains in the distance, a once-stunning sunset faded into garish orange with time. The pictures awoke a sudden nostalgia in Arthur that he thought he’d gotten past by now – a sharp regret for time passed by, which quickly crested into annoyance at the boy for taking him by surprise with this. He wanted to yank the album from Merlin’s hands and tell him off for prying, for snooping, but he knew perfectly well that it was an irrational response to emotions he usually kept buried, and that if he didn’t rein in his temper, he would most likely say something he’d regret further down the line.

So he pointed at the photo of the cabin instead. “That was my mother’s favourite vacation spot,” he said. “Or so my father said. He took us every Easter, and Vivienne always stayed home. They fought about it every time, the night before we left and the night we got back.”

Merlin wrinkled his nose. He was still fantastic at getting his disdain for Arthur’s dysfunctional family across, although he was getting better about not saying anything out loud.

“It got better after a while,” Arthur said, “but for a bit there, I think if they hadn’t fought, they wouldn’t have had anything at all to say to one another.”

Merlin’s expression didn’t ease, but to his credit, he still didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned the page, leaning back so the cardboard wouldn’t get caught in his shirt, and grinned when he got to the people photos – younger, more awkward, slightly blurry pictures of people he actually knew. He took particular delight in the picture of three children by a creek somewhere in the countryside, a stocky blonde boy next to a tall girl with gorgeous curls next to a dainty little brunette wearing pink rain boots, pig tails in her hair and covered from head to toe with mud. Young Arthur at least had had the intelligence to take his shirt off, leaving only a few smudges of brown streaked down his pale chest.

Merlin leaned over and pointed at the tall blonde girl in the picture. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“Oh, did I never tell you about her?” Arthur chuckled. “That’s Morgause. My other sister.”

Without warning, Merlin’s eyes went huge. “Morgause?” he squeaked.

Arthur nodded. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Morgause, Morgana and I. She’s a lot older than us. She was already in school when I was born.”

Merlin slowly, slowly leaned back against Arthur’s side. “She’s not around?” he asked.

Arthur shook his head. “She’s in South America somewhere, cataloguing butterflies. She sends post cards sometimes.”

Merlin nodded. “Okay,” he whispered.

“Right,” Arthur said.

There were teacups on the coffee table, both empty, and that reminded Arthur that he’d been at work all day with nothing but mediocre cafeteria food. “Tea?” he asked Merlin, who nodded absently and was no help whatsoever.

Going through the familiar motions of making tea soothed Arthur somewhat, distracting him from the odd turn their conversation had taken. It was natural for Merlin to be curious about his new family, he figured, but his reaction hadn’t seemed very much like curiosity – rather, it had carried a sour undertone, like someone frightened and trying not to show it.

Still, any success he’d had in calming himself down evaporated once he was done with the drinks. When he emerged from the kitchen, cups in hand, and set them down on the coffee table, Merlin had gone back to staring at the photo. He didn’t even seem to be studying it – just staring at it, like it might strike out to bite him any moment now.

Arthur cleared his throat. “Are you okay? You’re white as a sheet.”

Merlin gave some kind of jerky nod. “Fine,” he said. He bit his lip. “Do you know a Gaius?” Off Arthur’s blank look, he added, “Or Guy, maybe? Old guy, long white hair? I mean, maybe?”

Arthur, frowning, blinked hard a couple of times, but when he looked back at the kid, Merlin returned his gaze with a hopeless but determined expression. “No, Merlin,” Arthur said slowly. “I can reasonably say I don’t know anyone of that description – Gaius or otherwise.”

Merlin’s face fell. “No Gaius?” he asked. “But everybody else-“

“What?” His voice came out wrong, flat and harsh, but he didn’t know what to do about it. Lord in Heavens, what was _wrong_ with this kid? “Everybody else what?”

“Nothing,” Merlin said quietly. He sidestepped past Arthur and walked, on silent feet, up the stairs. A moment later, Arthur heard the boy’s bedroom door shut with a quiet, but final, click.

 

Merlin didn’t ever bother to explain his sudden snit, but he seemed mostly fine again the next morning, so Arthur let it go. In fact, he forgot all about it until the next time they went to Morgana’s for brunch, and the two wandered off into the living room while Arthur was, as usual, stuck with the dishes. He rinsed the last of the soap suds off the fancy, too-delicate-for-the-dishwasher bowls, and then went over to join them, hesitating just out of sight when he realized the two were actually talking to each other.

Or rather, Merlin was talking, because Morgana tried chattering at him all the time – Arthur had just never gotten the impression that the kid reacted to it, before.

“Does she ever talk to you?” Arthur could hear him ask now.

“Sure.” Morgana sounded surprised. “She calls every now and then.” A moment of silence. Then: “Would you like to talk to her sometime?”

“No,” Merlin said, too quickly. “I was just wondering how close you are.”

“Pretty close, I’d say,” Morgana said. “We didn’t have much to talk about for a long time, but once I started uni, we got a lot more comfortable with each other.”

“Right,” Merlin said quietly.

Arthur gave up on stealth, then, rounding the corner to find the boy staring at his shoes, and Morgana looking entirely as puzzled as Arthur felt.

 

Still, Merlin didn’t mention the whole thing again for so long that Arthur allowed himself to forget about it, wrapped up in doing the shopping and getting his work done and still coming home to Merlin at a reasonable time. Also, at a time that still allowed Freya enough time to get to her classes, after he’d once made her late for a lecture because a meeting ran over.

He was pretty sure she’d forgiven him a lot more quickly than he’d forgiven himself, and he made sure to be especially sincere when they exchanged their customary four, five sentences when he got home. She grinned like she knew what he was thinking, but didn’t say a word, and Arthur eventually let himself be lulled into a false sense of security that everything was fine and would be fine. He believed it right until the day he went scouting for the kid in the living room to find Merlin staring at a picture of a primary-aged Morgause posing with a stroppy pony, a riding hat covering the top of a truly impressive mane of hair.

He started when Arthur sat down next to him, but went back to staring at the picture a moment later.

 

“We could figure out what she’s up to at the moment,” Arthur said. “I’m sure she’d like to meet you.”

Merlin shuddered. “No, thank you,” he said.

“She’s very nice,” Arthur said, a sharp note creeping into his voice. “I think I can safely say she feels no desire to torture you, or whatever else you always seem to think.”

The boy whipped his head around. For a moment, his expression was mulish, until his lip began to quiver and his eyes took on a glassy shimmer. He didn’t cry – that, at least, wasn’t something to torture Arthur with. “That’s not fair,” Merlin bit out. “It’s not like I can help it.”

Arthur crossed his arms. “Can’t help what? Always assuming the worst of my family right off the bat?”

“Yes,” Merlin snarled at him, harshly enough that Arthur was just the tiniest bit taken aback. “It’s their own bloody fault, after all, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t!” Arthur bit his lip before more than just that one exasperated retort could escape him. There actually _was_ something wrong with Merlin. It wasn’t something the boy could help, acting like the entire world had wronged him somehow, because one half of it probably actually had and it was only to be expected that he had some trouble putting his faith in the other. Arthur had gathered as much from his parenting classes. It just didn’t make the whole thing any easier to bear.

When Merlin crossed his arms as well, jaw jutted out as stubbornly as an eight-year-old was capable of, Arthur ran his hand over his face. “Morgause has done _nothing_ to you, Merlin. She’s never met you. You didn’t even know who she _was_ when you saw her picture.” With a sigh, Arthur went to his knees before the kid and squeezed his shoulders. “And I’m sorry if the idea of even more family scares you, Merlin, I truly am, but you need to learn to distinguish between what’s in here,” and he laid his palm against Merlin’s temple, “and what’s actually happening.”

“That’s easy for you to say!” Merlin hissed at him. He pulled sharply out of Arthur’s grip, assuming a rebellious stance in front of the couch. “Everything’s so easy for you, isn’t it, because you just get to live this one life, don’t you, and everything’s hunky-dory and easy and problem-fucking-free, and everybody thinks I’m crazy because destiny just had to fuck me over one more time.”

“Merlin,” Arthur snapped.

“No!” Merlin screamed at him. He’d turned decidedly red, and the neighbours could probably hear him, at this point, but at least it sounded like angry yelling and not like Arthur was hurting him. So there was even a silver lining while Arthur’s kid was having a melt-down. Great.

Too bad he wasn’t finished yet. “You don’t get to tell me off just because I’m the only one who knows! All of you are fucking adults and I’m the kid and yet _I_ have to be the one shouldering the responsibility? It’s not fair, _it’s not fair_ , and don’t you dare yell at me just because you don’t know what I’m going through. And – and – and your family’s a bunch of nutbags, and the least you could do is admit it.”

“Quiet!” Arthur shouted back at him.

The sound seemed to shock the boy into silence. He stood there, face still red and chest heaving, but he’d stopped yelling, at least.

Arthur took a deep, steadying breath. Nobody had bothered to warn him about this part of child-rearing – the part where you had to hang on to your temper with an iron grip because by _God_ , they just knew how to push all your buttons, didn’t they?

“Go – upstairs,” he bit out.

Merlin hesitated, and Arthur showed all his teeth.

“Do not test me on this, Merlin. Just go.”

He did, thank God. Arthur waited until the door had shut upstairs before he collapsed on the couch with a groan. He thought he heard his mobile crunch under his weight, but when he dug it out of his back pocket it was fine, and lit up with a text from Sophia:

_Hello, handsome. Got the flat to myself this weekend. :)_

Arthur smiled weakly. He remembered making vague noises to Merlin about going down to the Electric Cinema, but then he also remembered the boy being a right snot to him not five minutes earlier, and his jaw set. He flicked the message closed and pulled up Freya’s number, who picked up on the third ring.

“Hey,” he said. He was quite proud of how calm he sounded; not at all like he wanted to sprint up those stairs and strangle _somebody_. “Any chance you can take over for me Friday night?”

 

Sophia was more than a little amenable to the idea of Arthur finally spending the night, which was, Arthur had to admit, a bit of ego bolstering he could well use. It wasn’t hard to forget about Merlin and all his frustrating bloody tics when he had Sophia’s mouth on his, and Sophia’s hand trailing down his body, and Sophia there in the morning with a cup of coffee and a blurry-eyed smile.

“I can’t stay for much longer,” Arthur said, with a regretful glance at the clock.

She waved him off. “No matter,” she said. “Not right away, though, right? I still have time for a shower.”

“Oh, yeah,” Arthur said, slurping a bit of coffee carefully so he wouldn’t splatter it all over his bare chest. “Go shower. I’ll try to wake up a bit more.”

She winked at him, and got in a good-natured grope before she disappeared down the hall.

Arthur rolled over and buried his grin in her pillow. He lay there, perfectly lazy, until his stomach growled a bit, at which point he dragged himself out of bed, fished around for his boxers, and wandered down the hall in search of the kitchen. The bathroom door was ajar, and when he passed it, he caught a glimpse of violent movement. When he paused, intrigued, he caught sight of Sophia in panties and a top, dancing around with her iPod plugs in her ears and the machine balanced precariously on the countertop. She was shaking her ass to whatever music is playing on her iPod right now, mouthing lyrics. As he watched, she grabbed a shampoo bottle and silently belted out the chorus, eyes closed in blissful dorkiness. Her hair went flying everywhere.

Arthur tried to hide his smirk. No doubt she’d be embarrassed if she noticed him watching, but quite frankly, it was ridiculously hot. Arthur liked confident women – women who didn’t feel the need to hide who they were, who were honest about what they liked, who didn’t mind acting a little ridiculous if that’s what they were in the mood for.

He retreated on silent feet. Perhaps it was time to discuss introducing her to his family, and he suspected that would go better if she wasn’t mortified.

 

Arthur slipped into the meeting seconds a hair’s breadth away from being late. The other junior and senior directors were already seated, though still exchanging small talk – or what passed as small talk in these meetings: the stock market, the Reynolds-Lorillard merger, the melting of Antarctica’s Smith Glacier.

An assistant hovered by the door with a cart loaded with croissants and coffee, and offered Arthur a paper cup with a smile. Arthur grimaced as he took it – they were two doors down from the kitchen, what was wrong with using a mug? – and slid into his seat moments before Alice looked up from her laptop and cleared her throat.

Directors’ meetings were generally horrifyingly boring, because any subject was of interest to no more than two or three attendees at a time. This time, though, after a brief welcome and a recap of last week, Alice closed her laptop’s lid, leaned back in her chair, and said, "As the rumor mill has no doubt already informed you, Hyperion Industries have shown interest in a collaboration.”

Arthur sat up straight, along with most of his colleagues. He had in fact heard a rumour, but the gossip mill had been churning out stories about collaboration with the notorious Helios and his company just about since he’d started, and he’d stopped putting a lot of stock in them.

Alice confirming it, of course, brought the game to a completely different level.

“Nothing has been decided yet,” Alice hastened to add. “As we all know, Helios in business negotiations is more volatile than a minefield, so while he’s expressed an interest in working with us, we will not be able to guarantee anything before the ink is dry.”

Heads bobbed solemnly around the table.

Alice folded her hands and leaned forward, pinning each of them in turn with a look, like a kindly grandmother who would not stand for disappointment. “There is a significant chance that each of you will interact with Helios personally at some point during the negotiations. I do not want to hear about a single one of you inadvertently sabotaging the negotiations, so watch your step.”

More nods, encouraging this time. As far as Arthur knew, Helios was ruthless, a business man through and through. Noble causes wouldn’t sway him. Charity couldn’t melt his heart. The only thing the man seemed to enjoy, besides money, were children. His own children, and their children, and other people’s children. If it had big eyes and a macaroni necklace, Helios loved it.

Adults, on the other hand could labour for years just to merit a handshake, and would fall from grace with a single misstep.

Alice, it seemed, had heard so too. “Be on your best behaviour,” she warned. “Tell your departments. Polite, professional, charming – be whatever you have to be. For the love of God, don’t ask him to go golfing. Talk to him about his kids. Your kids. Exploit his weak spot, but do _not_ let him catch on that that’s what you’re doing.”

She waved a hand. “Arthur, didn’t you just adopt a boy? Maybe that will soften him up a bit.”

Arthur nodded, pretending not to notice the curious stares from most of the rest of the room. He didn’t like the thought of using Merlin as a means to an end, but this thing with Hyperion was something he’d been working towards for years. Helios was a business mogul of incredible wealth and power, and having him on their side would put developments previously hopelessly out of reach firmly into their grasp. With Hyperion at Arthur’s back, doors would start opening left and right.

If mentioning his kid and maybe bonding a bit over the pictures in their wallet would help this deal go through, then Arthur was on board.

 

Sophia, when he asked how she felt about meeting his family, squealed so shrilly Arthur’s ears started to ring. She calmed – deflated – a little when he explained that it was Merlin who’d be first to meet her, and not his rich father and blue-blooded stepmother, but he and Merlin were a unit now. The kid had to come first.

Of course, letting Merlin know was a whole other story. Arthur chickened out several times over the next couple of days, finally swearing to himself one Thursday that he would tell him, that night, over dinner. He refused to procrastinate a single day more.

The fact that Sophia was supposed to come over on Saturday had the tiniest bit to do with it.

So when Merlin climbed into the seat next to him and helped himself to an enthusiastic serving of pasta, Arthur stilled his twitching knee and pinched his lips together. He was pretty sure even introducing his father to his first girlfriend hadn't been this bad, even though she'd been so nervous she'd turned green.

But there was nothing to do but suck it up, so while Merlin was busy drowning his meal in a truly disgusting amount of pesto, he cleared his throat and said, "So you've probably noticed that I've been going out more lately."

Merlin didn't have to answer that - the incredulous expression on his face said it all.

Arthur cleared his throat again. "That's because I've met someone."

Merlin did look up at that. "A girl?"

Arthur bit his lip to keep the corners of his mouth from curving up. "Yes, Merlin, a girl."

The kid ate his tortellini for a while, considering. Halfway through, he gave up on eating entirely and, spearing a bit of pasta with his fork, contemplated that instead. Arthur made himself concentrate on his food and raised nonchalant eyebrows when Merlin pointed at him with his cutlery.

"Yes, Merlin?" he said.

The boy narrowed his eyes at Arthur. "Does she have curly hair?"

Arthur just barely kept his smile from turning into a disbelieving laugh. Did she have curly hair? Who cared? He didn't really think so, but he was fairly sure he'd seen a hair straightener somewhere in the chaos of her bathroom, so perhaps?

"Yes," he said firmly.

The kid twisted his mouth from side to side. "And you like her?"

This time, Arthur didn't hesitate before nodding. “I care about her more than anyone.”

A smile blossomed on Merlin's face at that, jarring in its sweetness, unsettling because every book Arthur had read, every website he'd checked, every parent he'd asked - not that he knew very many - had warned him to expect the worst. Merlin beaming at him over dinner was not the worst.

Instead, there was a strange little smile on his face, secretive and pleased. "Is she lovely?" he asked.

Perhaps 'lovely' wasn't quite the right word. Still, there were things Arthur wasn't ready for Merlin to know yet, so he smiled back and said, "Yes, quite lovely."

Merlin smiled at him still, suddenly looking old and wise beyond his years. “Then I’m happy for you,” he said and, while Arthur stared at him, dumbstruck, returned to his meal.

 

Merlin was practically buzzing the morning of his and Sophia’s scheduled first meeting. He didn’t actually admit to any sort of excitement, but his chatter was even more mindless than usual, and he flitted through the house and the garden and even, occasionally, before he caught himself abruptly, dropped back into his storytelling mind-set, offering some tidbit about handmaidens or besieged villages or the ghosts of dead kings before he snapped his mouth shut.

Arthur didn’t want to admit that he’d missed it.

Arthur made pizza for lunch just to have something to do, and because he didn’t trust himself around a hot stove. Merlin’s restlessness had made him jittery as well, and after lunch he spent two hours sitting on the couch with his knee twitching up and down while Merlin rummaged around upstairs, waiting for the clock on the DVD-player to switch over to 3.

Sophia had texted him when she’d set out from the tube station, but the buzz of the doorbell was no less jarring for all he’d been expecting it.

“I’ll get it!” he called. He could hear Merlin trample down the stairs behind him and quickened his step. “Hello,” he said to Sophia and, with barely any pause, wrestled her indoors. She’d dressed in a sweet, demure pink number that was no doubt intended to be both endearing and child-friendly. It didn’t really do much for Arthur, but that wasn’t the point.

Merlin’s footsteps came to an abrupt stop in the corridor behind him. Arthur shared a glance with Sophia – mutual terror – and then stepped aside so she was no longer hidden from view by his broader, bulkier body.

And so had perfect view of the moment when Merlin’s anticipatory half-smile slipped away.

Arthur wasn’t sure what, exactly, she was supposed to have done. In fact, she hadn’t even set down her purse or slipped out of her heels, and yet, face blank and unreadable, Merlin stared at her.

Arthur felt his stomach sink. It wasn’t that Merlin was frowning, or growing tearful, or yelling out his disgust, but his behaviour was still such a marked change from the previous mood of the morning that there could be no doubt Sophia had already failed to live up to his expectations. Somehow.

Still, Arthur ushered her forward, steering her down the hallway and gently bringing her to a stop in front of the boy.

“Merlin, I want you to meet Sophia.”

“Hello, Merlin. It’s nice to meet you.” Sophia smiled too brightly, no doubt affected by the sudden change in mood, and Arthur winced. Merlin was already irrational enough when it came to liking and disliking people – offending him by being too nice was not going to win Sophia any points.

He had a brief moment of hope when Merlin contemplated the hand Sophia thrust out at him. Then the boy took it – with his left –, looked up and smiled grimly. “There must have been beer goggles involved.”

In the silence that followed, he dropped Sophia’s hand and adopted what Arthur had come to call his ‘fighting stance’: Feet planted firmly on the ground, arms crossed, and his jaw set stubbornly forward.

Sophia gasped for air. She turned to Arthur and opened her mouth again, but the only sound she made was an outraged squeak.

Arthur considered drowning himself in his tea cup. “Merlin, apologize to Sophia,” he said.

Merlin shook his head ‘no’.

Too exhausted to even be angry, Arthur took hold of Merlin’s shoulder and turned him towards the stairs. “Why don’t you go upstairs to your room, then?” he said. He breathed a sigh of relief when Merlin cast an uncertain look back at them and then silently did as he was told.

He took the still speechless Sophia by the elbow and steered her into the kitchen. He gently nudged her into one of the chairs and started taking teabags, cups, and saucers out of the closet. “I’m sorry,” he said, when the silence grew dark and oppressive around them. “He can be a bit peculiar.”

“Peculiar?” Sophia repeated.

“Difficult.”

She nodded, face still dark, and then made a visible effort to smile, and Arthur was all the surer of his decision for it. She’d be good for them – bring in a bit of normalcy and perhaps a maternal touch that Arthur didn’t know how to provide, and every book and article and talk Arthur had gone through on the subject had warned him that Merlin likely wouldn’t react well at first.

“I’ll talk to him,” he said.

Sophia reached across the table to squeeze his hand. “I can go.”

For a moment, Arthur wavered. He’d rather not let Merlin work himself into a snit, but perhaps the time apart would give both of them a chance to calm down. He didn’t exactly know Merlin well enough to predict how he’d react to being punished, so really, he was flying absolutely blind.

Sophia reached for her bag, and Arthur reached a split-second decision. “Stay,” he said. “For tea. Merlin will survive, and you were going to tell me about your presentation.”

She grinned at him, relinquishing her hold on her purse and heading for the kettle instead, and Arthur found himself grinning helplessly as she started to talk. God, he was such a lucky guy.

 

Tea ended up lasting longer than expected, spilling over into another round and then some kissing at the door. Arthur refused to acknowledge the growing twinges of guilt at leaving Merlin alone for so long, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, and when he caught himself not only clearing the used dishes off the table but also wiping the surface down for invisible crumbs, he forced himself to head up the stairs. It wasn’t fair to make Merlin miserable just because Arthur was being a coward.

He hesitated at the landing, anyway. It was quiet up here, quiet in the whole house. Arthur drew back his shoulders. He rapped his knuckles against Merlin’s door and then turned the handle to let it drift open on its own.

Merlin was sat on his bed, book open in his lap, but Arthur could tell he wasn’t reading a word.

“Hey,” he said, pulling the door shut behind him.

It took Merlin several moments to drag his eyes over to him.

“Put the book away for a moment,” Arthur said. He crossed the room while Merlin obeyed with unsteady fingers, shoving the book under his second pillow stuffed halfway into the gap between bed and wall. Arthur sat down next to him on the mattress. He opened his mouth to say what he’d rehearsed on the way up, about being reasonable and mature and keeping an open mind, but none of it would pass his lips. Instead he was suddenly tired, bone-weary and exhausted, and he reached up to wipe at one eye and didn’t say anything.

“Are you m-mad at me now?” Merlin asked. He was going for defiant, Arthur could tell, but the quaver in his voice gave him away.

“I’m certainly not pleased with your behaviour,” Arthur said sternly.

Merlin swallowed and looked down at his hands, balled into tiny fists, lying in his lap. “Oh,” he mouthed.

Arthur settled back against the wall and sighed. “Look, Merlin, you know perfectly well that I like Sophia. I like her a lot. I don’t want you to be best friends, okay?” He reached over and brushed the hair out of Merlin’s forehead, but the kid had his head ducked so low that Arthur still couldn’t see his expression. “All I’m asking is that you try to get along.”

“She doesn’t like me,” Merlin said quietly.

Arthur frowned. “Merlin, you barely exchanged two sentences with her. She was perfectly civil to you. Why would she not like you?”

“She tossed me into a wall,” Merlin said. He kept his head down, but Arthur could hear the spark of anger in his voice.

“When was this?” Arthur asked. Underneath his confusion, he could feel a spark of righteous anger, threatening to grow into some rash reaction. If he found out she’d done something to harm his kid while he wasn’t looking, there would most certainly be hell to pay.

Merlin’s voice was very quiet when he said, “Before.”

Arthur smoothed the frown out of his voice when he brushed the hair out of Merlin’s forehead again. “In this lifetime?” he asked, half-joking.

Merlin darted a hopeful look at him before he quickly looked away. “No,” he said softly.

Arthur sighed. Merlin flinched at the sound and didn’t look up, not even when Arthur bodily picked him up and settled him into his lap. They shuffled around for a moment, getting Merlin’s limbs arranged so they were at healthy-looking angles and nothing was going to give Arthur bruises, and then Arthur buried his nose in Merlin’s hair and closed his eyes.

“Sometimes I don’t know what to do with you,” he whispered. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, not really, and was proven right when Merlin flinched at the words.

He mumbled something that might have been, “Sorry,” and Arthur sighed.

“I’m not after an apology,” he said. He squeezed Merlin’s upper arms; they were stick-thin. Arthur couldn’t remember ever being that small. “I just want you to try to get along with Sophia, okay? I really like her.”

Merlin was silent for a while. Eventually, so quietly Arthur had to strain to hear, he stammered “But you’re in love with Gwen,” into his collar.

“Who the fuck is Gwen?” Arthur asked. He felt bad about the swearing a moment later, but given the circumstances, he couldn’t say he hadn’t meant it. He tried to peer at Merlin’s face, but the kid kept his head turned away.

He didn’t reply, either, and Arthur got the feeling he hadn’t been supposed to hear that last part, so he let it go.

 

Merlin did not get acclimated to Sophia. In fact, the more the two interacted, the more his dislike for her seemed to grow. From what Arthur could tell, Sophia tried every trick in the book in their interactions, from overenthusiastic interest to casual nonchalance, and Merlin responded to each and every advance with a frown and a disdainfully wrinkled nose.

On the plus side, disliking Sophia seemed to at least give Merlin and Morgana a chance to bond. Morgana and Arthur had decided on a bi-monthly Saturday morning brunch so Merlin would have a chance to convince himself that no, Morgana was not about to shackle him to the ceiling for her nefarious plans, and while those had gone fine for the most part, Merlin had never really warmed up to Morgana until the two discovered their mutual hatred for Arthur’s new girlfriend.

Arthur rolled his eyes and told himself that it didn’t matter what they thought; that the fact that Merlin could conquer his fear of Morgana was a good sign that he’d grow to like Sophia, as well, as soon as Arthur introduced him to someone else to irrationally hate. It didn’t make it any easier for him to overhear their displeased whispers over whatever atrocities Sophia had committed this week, but Arthur was trying to be a mature adult, here – he could grit his teeth and bear it if he absolutely had to.

He’d be fucked if he was still doing their dishes, though.

 

There was a heat wave in early May, bad enough that Arthur had to take an extra shirt to work because for several days, he inevitably emerged from the tube soaked in sweat. Thursday during lunch, when he thought he saw the ceiling fans melt, Arthur caved and phoned Morgana. He left the office early to collect a miserable, sweaty Merlin from an appreciative Freya and took the kid straight to his sister’s house, where enduring her gloating was sweetened by the fact that she had a private pool.

“See, that’s what you get for having such a sustainable house,” Morgana said smugly when he emerged from her downstairs bathroom in his swimming shorts. “You have the clean conscience; I have the clean, lighted and heated swimming pool.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “The planet thanks you, Morgana, I’m sure.”

“Condemn me all you like,” she said, hands lifted in mocking defence. “I’ll doubt you’ll be complaining when you’re in it.”

True, he wouldn’t be. That didn’t mean he had to admit it, though, so he turned towards the upstairs, where Merlin had been spirited away to get changed himself. “Kid!” he called.

Morgana’s new bloke, a guy called Val with a buzz cut and a ring in one ear, snorted from where he was hip-deep in the fridge. He seemed like an okay guy, even though he was shirtless and wearing those thigh-high hipster shorts. So far he’d said hello and laughed at everything Merlin had done, not meanly, but in a ‘kids are so strange’- way that Arthur could seriously identify with.

“Coming!” Merlin yelled back, annoyed. He trampled down the stairs a moment later, stumbled three steps from the ground and fell neatly into Arthur’s chest.

“Very graceful,” Arthur said. He set Merlin on his feet on Morgana’s lovely cream carpet and gave him a little push. “Go on.”

“Why do I have to go first?” Merlin asked, frowning up at him.

“Because I said so.” Arthur had only recently discovered that magical phrase, and although it only worked as often as not, it was so satisfying on a primal level that he used it all the time now.

Val snickered again.

Merlin pulled a face. Sure enough, he didn’t take a single step towards the terrace, though he did shoot the wide glass doors a sceptical look. After a moment, he reached up to take Arthur’s hand into his clammy fingers; when Arthur glanced down at him, surprised, he didn’t even seem to be paying attention.

“Let’s go,” Arthur prodded. He gave Merlin a little nudge, and the boy nodded and didn’t move.

With a roll of his eyes, Arthur led the way in the end. The heat when he opened the sliding doors was like walking into a wall, and he untangled himself from Merlin's grip and dove headfirst into the pool. The cold water was a shock to the system at first, enough so that he came up sputtering, but once he’d caught his breath and wiped the liquid from his eyes, it was amazing to feel cool wetness on his skin that wasn’t his own sticky sweat. Grinning so broadly it almost hurt, he did a couple of quick laps around the pool. It was too small to be really satisfying, but the pull of long-neglected muscles and the feeling of the cold water running down his back made up for a lot.

Afterwards, he pulled his feet under himself and stood. At the narrow end, the water only came up to around his thighs, leaving him half chilled and half toasting. It was glorious.

Apparently Merlin didn't think so, because he was standing, dubiously, by the stairs Arthur had happily ignored. As far as Arthur could tell, not even his toes were wet.

"Come on," Arthur said, waving him in.

The boy shook his head.

Arthur made a move towards him, intending to bodily pull him in if he had to, and Merlin, with a speed Arthur hadn't thought him capable of, latched onto the stairs' metal railing and held on tight.

Frowning now, Arthur waded closer. "What's going on?" He asked. "Come on."

Merlin shook his head again.

“Come _on_ ,” Arthur said, splashing water in Merlin’s direction – lightly, because the boy looked like he might start crying any minute. Because when could anything ever be easy with this kid?

Merlin’s dubious expression didn’t ease. He kept clinging to the rails with all the strength in his scrawny body and, when Arthur sighed and took another step towards him, blurted out, “But what if you drown?”

“What if _I_ drown?” Arthur repeated blankly.

Merlin nodded frantically. He still didn’t let go of the rails.

He blanched when Arthur drew himself up to his full height, letting the water pool from his body, and waded over to the steps with determination.

“Merlin,” he said. He didn’t think he sounded _too_ condescending, but good God, this kid drove him up the wall sometimes. “This pool barely comes up to my hips. It’s absolutely clear so there are no monsters in it, and there are several adults that could pull me out in a heartbeat if they needed to.” He reached up and pried Merlin’s fingers away from the sun-warmed metal.

Before the boy could regain his iron grip, Arthur scooped him up and lifted him bodily into the water. Merlin clamped his thighs around Arthur’s waist and damn near strangled him with his arms around Arthur’s neck, but he didn’t start screaming _or_ crying, so Arthur counted it as a success.

Slowly, with Merlin clinging to him like a barnacle, he moved away from the edge of the pool. He didn’t go any deeper – because there was tough love, and then there was torture – but he did move out into the open water, where there wasn’t an edge to cling to and the sun reflecting off the surface stung his eyes.

“See?” he said quietly. “It’s just a pool, Merlin. It’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Hesitantly, cautiously, Merlin peered down at the distorted sight of Arthur’s legs and feet under the water’s surface. “You’re not going to drown?”

“I’m reasonably sure, yes.” Arthur could feel the sarcasm creeping into his voice and swallowed it down with determination.

Merlin nodded. He glanced around then, at a loss, before settling down more firmly on Arthur’s hip. Arthur had the sneaking suspicion that he’d never been in a pool before and didn’t understand exactly what ‘having fun,’ meant, in this instance in particular as well as generally. Which just meant that Merlin was lucky that Arthur was there to show him the ropes.

He squeezed the kid’s waist, gently, and waited until he had Merlin’s uncertain attention. “Can I toss you?”

Merlin’s eyes darted towards the deep end and back. He nodded.

“Are you sure?” Arthur pressed.

Merlin nodded again, and Arthur moved before he could change his mind, sending him crashing into the shallow end with his arms and legs flying. The kid broke the surface sputtering. Arthur waded over and caught him before he could panic after all.

“Okay?” he asked, when Merlin had wiped the water from his eyes. “Again?”

“Again,” Merlin confirmed, with barely any hesitation, and shrieked in delight when Arthur sent him hurtling into the air towards the deeper end.

 

Morgana’s bloke eventually came out to say goodbye, which Arthur took as a cue for them to get going as well. His fingers were starting to prune and with the sun dipping behind the house, it wouldn’t be long before Merlin started shivering. Merlin didn’t complain overly much. He pouted a little but let Arthur boost him out of the water without much more than a moan of protest.

Morgana met them at the door. “There are towels on the sofa,” she said. “Arthur, beer?”

She disappeared when Arthur nodded. Arthur squeezed the worst of the water from his hair and tried not to ruin her carpeting on his way over to the couch. While Merlin rushed off for a shower, Arthur draped a beach towel with tastefully muted colours over his shoulders and shook his head to get the water out of his ears.

“Don’t you dare drip on my coffee table books,” Morgana’s voice drifted over from the kitchen.

Arthur glanced down at the display laid out under the glass surface – _Modernist Cuisine_ , _The Times Atlas of the World_ , the complete paintings of Gustav Klimt. Privately, he figured that a whole lot of them would be improved by a few waters stains, but he knew better than to say that out loud.

Still, Morgana must have guessed at his thoughts regardless, because her look when she returned with two open beer bottles in hand was the stern kind of disapproving only a displeased older sister could properly manage. She didn’t have the opportunity to reprimand him, though, before there was a crash and a squawk of alarm from somewhere inside the bowels of the house.

Arthur raised his voice. “Did you die?”

“I’m okay!” Merlin’s reply drifted back to them, and Arthur raised his eyes to the ceiling and shook his head.

When he looked over again, Morgana was watching him with a thoughtful expression.

“You know, it pains me to say this, but you might actually be pretty good at this fatherhood thing.”

Arthur laughed. “Don’t hurt yourself,” he said, mostly to cover the blush creeping along his neck. He wasn’t sure he really believed her, but it felt undeniably good – the thought that maybe, just maybe, there was somebody somewhere who couldn’t tell how badly he was fucking this up.

 

June brought with it a conference in Madrid for Arthur to attend, forcing him to leave Merlin in Morgana’s tender care. He hadn’t dared inflict the boy on Sophia, not with Merlin’s alternatively panicked and then churlish attitude over the fact that Arthur was leaving at all, and he wasn’t convinced he was ready to leave the kid at Sophia’s mercy. At least staying with Morgana seemed generally acceptable to the kid, and Arthur only had to reassure him of her lack of ill will and her general affection for Merlin a handful of times.

It didn’t matter, in any case, because the conference was part of Arthur’s job, one he’d quite like to keep, and the boy had to stay _somewhere_. Morgana would manage splendidly, Arthur was sure.

The only problem was, Arthur realized when he was leaning against the window of his room at the Hilton, looking out at the brightly lit streets with Carlisle Shean lounging on the other bed and Danica Roufall in the room across the hall, that Arthur hadn’t accounted for his _own_ feelings in the matter. He’d done his absolute best to make sure Merlin was safely taken care of before he’d set foot inside the plane, and yet… and yet he had never even bothered to contemplate how _he_ might fare, being separated from the boy for so long.

The thing was, Arthur _missed_ him. He’d figured he’d be relieved to spend a couple of days away from the kid, that he’d enjoy a couple of drinks after dinner without having to worry about the time and the babysitter. Instead, he had had to constantly check himself to keep from looking around for him, had let the quick check-up call on Saturday turn into a half-hour long chitchat, and even managed to sneak a souvenir for the kid into his bag. He was hopeless. It was ridiculous.

 

“You’re antsy to be getting home,” Carlisle commented casually when the fasten-seatbelt sign faded into nothingness and Arthur practically sprang from his seat.

Arthur hesitated for a moment, feeling foolish, then shrugged the sentiment off. “I suppose,” he said, slipping on his blazer. “Aren’t you?”

“Not _that_ antsy,” Carlisle muttered.

Danica, seated in the row behind, snickered under her breath – perhaps at Arthur, perhaps at Carlisle and his apparent marital problems, who knew.

Arthur lifted down their carry-on suitcases, picked up his briefcase and nodded at the flight attendant. “Just good to be back, I guess.”

They made small talk on the walk through the terminal (where they’d transfer to from the Piccadilly Line), interrupted only briefly by Border control. Arthur explained about having moved, vaguely, but didn’t mention why, distracted as he was by the thought of heading over to his sister’s house to pick up Merlin, who’d no doubt be grumpy about having been in her clutches for three whole days and would not be near as pleased to see Arthur as Arthur was to see him. Danica unwittingly saved him from having to explain by going off on a tangent about house-hunting with her boyfriend, and Arthur barely paid attention to the familiar walk past the last duty-free shop and out into the arrival hall.

“ _Arthur!_ ”

The call had him jerking his head around to see Merlin barrelling towards him across the hall, Morgana trailing behind quickly left in the dust. Arthur dropped his briefcase and his carry-on and knelt down to catch him, even though his bag held his laptop and important documents and the fall made his knees ache. Who cared when it ended him with an armful of scrawny boy who looked too pleased to see him to mind the kisses Arthur pressed all over his face.

“You’re back!” Merlin mumbled instead, muffled in the collar of Arthur’s shirt, clinging tightly to Arthur’s neck.

Arthur was vaguely aware they were causing a scene – they had to be, didn’t they, since they were blocking the exit and Arthur’s things were scattered all over the floor while a little boy wrinkled his suit.

Funnily enough, he didn’t give a damn.

“I am,” he murmured instead. “And you’re here.”

“It was Morgana’s idea,” Merlin told him. He drew back a little bit, glancing over Arthur’s shoulder curiously. Right on. His colleagues.

“I couldn’t take his moping any longer,” Morgana explained, finally arrived.

Arthur smiled at her. “Take that,” he told Merlin with a nod towards his briefcase. Then he stood, righting his suitcase along the way, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Thank you,” he said quietly. He tipped his forehead against Merlin’s. “Were you good for her while I was gone?”

In response, Merlin stuck his fingers into his mouth. “Er. Mostly.”

“That’s a no, then,” Arthur said wryly. He cupped the back of Merlin’s head and pressed one last kiss to his temple, and then turned to face his other life.

“Danika, Carlisle, have you met my son?” Arthur gave them both a sunny smile, ignoring the flabbergasted looks on both their faces. He wasn’t surprised he’d caught them off-guard. Arthur was known around the office for being ruthless in pursuit of his goals, no matter how noble those goals might be, and it was no doubt a shock for them to have to reconcile his sharp suits and sharper words with the Arthur who showered his little boy with kisses.

Merlin, of course, chose that exact moment to grow unusually shy. He buried his head in Arthur’s neck when Carlisle cleared his throat and said, “Hello.”

“And my sister Morgana,” Arthur added, indicating her with a wave of his hand.

Morgana smiled graciously, with just a hint of bite. “It’s lovely to meet you.” To Arthur, she said, “I brought the car.”

“There’s a perfectly serviceable tube line,” Arthur felt obliged to point out. “In fact, I took it to get here.”

Morgana scoffed. “Loathe as I am to deprive you of the pleasantness of the London Underground, I _will_ be driving my car back to Northwood regardless, so you might as well ride with me.”

With a quiet sigh, Arthur nodded his assent. Morgana took his briefcase from Merlin’s grubby fingers, waved at Arthur’s colleagues and sashayed towards the elevators.

“Have a good trip home,” Arthur said to Danica and Carlisle. With afternoon traffic being what it was, they’d most likely arrive before he did. He tried to get Merlin to say goodbye as well, but the boy seemed content to cling to Arthur with all his might, so Arthur offered them a what-can-you-do smile and followed after his sister.

He thought he felt their stares boring into his back as he walked away.

 

Arthur, pink from speed-walking all the way home from the station, almost dropped his keys fumbling them into the lock. He set his briefcase down and hung his dry-cleaning up on the coat rack and yelled, “Merlin, you better be ready.”

There was no reply from the boy. Instead, he thought he heard Sophia’s voice, indistinct but identifiable, from somewhere. He found her in the kitchen, in front of an empty cup and saucer, and brushed around her on the way to the fruit basket.

“Hi Sophia, I’m sorry but I can’t right now, I have to take Merlin to my parents’, and we’re already a bit behind schedule.”

“Who’s Gwen?” Sophia asked.

Arthur raised his brows. “Who?”

Her expression was all venom when she snarled at him, “The woman _your son_ keeps talking about.”

Arthur blinked at her a couple of times before it finally clicked. “Oh, _Gwen_ ,” he said. “I’m not sure she exists, actually. He’s been talking about her since I met him.”

She stared at him for a moment, and he stared back at her until she seemed to remember that it was _Merlin_ they were talking about, and a made-up invisible girlfriend for his foster parent actually _was_ the most reasonable and logical explanation.

“Right,” she said, grimacing. “I should have figured.”

Arthur tried not to let his annoyance show. If she was going to show up uninvited, she was going to have to live with the consequences, too, and part of that was dealing with Merlin’s quirky side. Making disparaging comments about it really wasn’t helping anybody.

Determined to let the matter drop before it turned into a fight that he didn’t have time for, Arthur peered into the living room. “Where’s Freya?”

“I sent her home when I got here. Figured Merlin might open up a bit more if it’s just me and him.” She faked a grin. “I won’t be making that mistake again.”

“Sophia,” Arthur said, but he had nothing to follow it up with, and after a moment of impatient waiting, she gathered up her things.

“It’s fine,” she said. She gave him a quick peck. “You’re busy and I have better things to do than sit here.” _And listen to this,_ , she didn’t say. “I’ll call you.”

“Right,” Arthur said. Belatedly, he remembered to pluck an apple and a banana from the fruit bowl and leave them on the shoe cabinet on his way up the stairs.

Merlin’s door was closed. Arthur managed the barest of knocks before he pushed open the door, and almost groaned when he saw Merlin sitting on the floor in his socks, fumbling around with his plastic knights. Merlin didn’t usually play – he read his book a lot, and every once in a while he’d make a mess of whatever toys people had gifted him with, but Arthur rarely saw him engaging in the kind of games other boys that age seemed to like – the sort of playing Arthur remembered doing himself; running through the house yelling, being pirates and pushing toy cars around or fashioning police guns out of, well, anything. Even now, what he was doing wasn’t playing in the traditional sense – he had his soldiers battling each other, sure, but it didn’t look like he thought it particularly _fun_.

Arthur blew out a sharp breath and resigned himself to being late.

“Hello,” he said then, to the boy who just barely peeked back at him over a cautious shoulder.

Merlin bit his lip, so even if he hadn’t pissed her off intentionally, he still knew something was up. He stiffened guiltily when Arthur plopped down behind him, and froze when Arthur wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close.

“You,” Arthur said silkily, right in his ear, “are a bloody menace.”

Merlin’s face twisted unhappily. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Yes, you did.” Arthur forestalled further argument by laying his hand on Merlin’s mouth. “Have you got your kit?”

The boy nodded, wide-eyed, and Arthur released him. “Well then, get it and let’s go.”

 

Merlin kept his mouth shut until they were almost at the M25, which was quite a while considering the traffic. He did shoot Arthur continuous quick glances, but it wasn’t until they’d passed the Edgware tube stop that he said, voice small, “Aren’t you mad?”

Arthur pointed a warning finger at the boy. “Oh, I’m plenty mad, believe me. I’d roast you over a fire pit if I had one, so really, it’d be in your best interest to stop reminding me.”

Merlin hummed thoughtfully.

“I hope my father makes you play monopoly all night,” Arthur muttered under his breath, deeply gratified when the kid’s horrified look assured him that it would be sufficient punishment.

 

Arthur was loitering around the staff lounge, waiting for Aislinn in the corner office to send him the newest batch of data, when Marks showed up. They were usually friendly enough, but certainly not friends, and Arthur found himself growing annoyed when Marks first needed something from that cupboard and then something from that drawer, forcing him to keep shuffling around the kitchen area until he finally gave in and fled to the other side of the room.

He thought he saw Marks grin.

“Something the matter?” he asked.

Marks pulled a mock-considering face. “I hear you have a son now,” he said.

Arthur raised his brows. “What of it?”

“Oh, nothing.” Marks shrugged, in a way that made it obvious that it was indeed something. "It's just convenient, isn't it? We start working with this ruthless corporate giant whose only weak spot are his children, and suddenly you have a kid of your own." He showed his teeth. "How very relatable you suddenly are."

Arthur felt his jaw drop. A dozen thoughts ran through his head; _how dare you; is that how low_ you _would sink?; you're crazy._ In the end, he didn't say any of them though, just brushed by Marks on his way back to work.

 

"You okay?" Elena asked, peering past her ice cream cone at Arthur's face. She’d insisted on treating them, as a ‘summer’s over’ consolation for the boys. "You've been all..." She waved her free hand. "... broody today."

Arthur pulled a face. “It’s fine,” he said. He waved her off. “It’s just been a long – everything.”

“Fine, clearly,” she said.

Arthur didn’t say anything for a long moment. He could handle anything life threw at him, he’d learned, except for nice people, so he kept his eyes firmly fixed on Merlin and Gwaine up ahead, arguing happily about something or other, until the urge to break down in a pathetic ball of misery had passed.

“Nothing I can do anything about,” he said.

Elena grimaced. “Sorry to hear that,” she said.

Arthur waved her off. “Things’ll get better,” he said. He took a deep breath, and smiled. “They have to.”

 

Annis met Arthur in the corridor. “Mr. Pendragon,” she said. She sounded cold.

Arthur didn’t think it was anything he’d done. Her anger must instead be aimed at Merlin, then, but the thought didn’t really make him feel any better. He’d had to abandon a site inspection in Reading, spend a good hour or so stuck in London traffic, and was now apparently tasked with dealing with the principal’s bad mood. His day just wasn’t shaping up very well.

“Ms. Annis,” he said.

Her expression didn’t lighten. “I’m glad you could finally make it.”

"Yes," Arthur said. "And I’m sure it must have been very important for you to ask me to miss work.”

“You could say that, yes.” Annis’ face was pinched. "Would you step into my office?"

"Where's Merlin?"

"In a minute." She beckoned him into her office again. "I'd like to have a word about what happened, first."

Arthur followed her reluctantly. She seemed determined not to be rushed, though, making sure he was settled and offering him tea - tea! - before she sat behind her desk. She cleared her throat and shifted, and it was all Arthur could do not to roll his eyes.

“You wanted to have a word,” he reminded her.

“I did.” She brushed her hair off her shoulder. “From our correspondence with Merlin’s caseworker, we’re aware that Merlin does not usually tend towards violence.”

“He doesn’t, no,” Arthur said. Violent _stories_ , yes. Not actual violence.

Annis nodded grimly. "You should know, then, that he was involved in an altercation today."

Altercation. Good Lord. Considering the damage Merlin could do to himself, Arthur didn't actually want to know what he'd look like when somebody else got to him.

“Is he hurt?” he asked. At least it couldn’t be that bad since they were still here, and not at the hospital.

“No, he’s fine for the most part. One of our staff checked him over.”

Annis gave him a significant look that he didn't really know how to read, so he nodded. "Can I see him now?" he asked. He'd have a clearer head and more patience with the principal if he knew what the damage was, he figured.

"Yes, of course." Her face was still pinched as she leaned over to pick up the phone. "Mary, could you send in the boys, please."

Arthur gripped the arms of his chair and steeled himself. At least Annis didn't look any more at ease, tapping the end of her pen against her desk in the tense moments of silence before the door opened and Merlin and another boy were ushered inside.

Arthur stared.

Merlin was fine. Utterly fine, besides a raised welt on his forearm that looked like it hadn't even broken the skin. Perhaps a bit red-eyed, and definitely on edge, but he looked like no one had tried to touch a hair on his head.

The boy beside him, though… _he_ was a mess. He had cuts on his lips and cheek and a black eye and bruises on his arms and around his wrists, and he was six years old, at most.

Arthur gave Merlin a disbelieving look.

Merlin crossed his arms in front of his chest, going for defiant, but from his expression, it was clear he knew he had crossed a line. And thank God for it. Arthur wasn’t sure what he would have done if he’d turned out to have a budding sociopath on his hands.

“Are you satisfied?” Annis asked, voice low. She didn’t look perturbed by Arthur’s glare, turning to the two boys instead. “Mordred, your mother will be here in a moment.”

The little boy looked so relieved that Arthur felt an odd, displaced anger on his behalf. He shouldn’t look like he’d just been run over, not at _six_ , and Arthur wanted to protect him, to show the world that messing with the child would not go over well. Even if the person messing with him was Arthur’s very own.

The guilty look on his kid’s face didn't help.

“Miss Howden will get you both a snack,” Annis said.

Merlin tried to catch Arthur’s eye when the obviously pregnant secretary ushered them both out. Arthur wasn’t sure what his face was showing at the moment, so he kept his face turned firmly away.

“Tea?” Annis offered again.

“Please,” Arthur said, mouth uncomfortably dry, only to nearly upend the drink in his lap five minutes later when a woman burst into the office, snarling, “I am going to _kill_ that little bastard.”

 

Nimueh, apparently, was Mordred’s mother. She had striking blue eyes and long hair of that rich red colour that Henna dye gave you, and apparently quite the temper. She was a single parent too, and Arthur had hoped that might give them something to bond over, a bit of a, ‘Haha, our boys; let’s figure out how to get this straightened out.’

Instead, she hated Merlin

It didn’t help that Mordred had been at St. Paul’s for no more than three weeks and was mostly a charming little angel, and that Merlin apparently had a reputation around school for being an antisocial weirdo. A reputation that Mordred had already heard and told his mother about before Merlin ever grew aware of his existence, and that she now slung back in Arthur’s face like it was _his_ fault.

“Yes,” he said into the expectant silence. Denying it was pointless. “Merlin does have some issues. He’s a sweet boy usually, but he does have his issues.”

The way Nimueh was eyeing him, he was fairly certain she was fantasizing about strangling him. “Oh, and I guess that makes beating my son’s face to mush a-okay, then?”

Arthur clenched his jaw. “No, of course not,” he said, after a moment. “And I never said anything of the sort.”

Nimueh laughed sharply. “You’re one of those ‘boys will be boys’ - types, aren’t you? Violence and disrespect and bullying is all fine and dandy, because Lord forbid you admit to fathering a fucking psychopath.”

He sucked in a harsh breath. “Now wait just a minute,” he snapped. “Merlin is not a bully, and he’s not a psychopath.”

She sneered, and Arthur took a deep breath to keep from snarling at her. If some teenager had made Merlin look like that, he’d have wanted to strangle them as well. “I understand you’re upset,” he said slowly. “But please do watch your tone. Yes, hurting your son was not okay, but I won’t have you talking about my kid like that.”

“Oh, like father, like son, then.” She laughed again. “Is he making you proud? Were you beating up little boys for lunch money at that age, too?”

“There’s no need for that,” Arthur ground out.

“Oh, there is every need.” She raised her hand, and for a moment Arthur thought she might slap him, but in the end she only clenched her fingers back into her purse. “There is every need when my son ought to be in hospital and yet here we are, with the person responsible giving everybody big doe-eyes and you offering me lame excuses!”

“I’m not excusing anything,” Arthur snapped. He was getting loud again, he could tell, but this whole business really wasn’t good for his blood pressure. He took a deep breath and said, “I’m trying to explain, alright? Merlin’s been through a lot, and he’s a little messed up. He’s not a bad kid.”

“He’s a little devil,” Nimueh snarled at him, “and I won’t rest until he’s been expelled.”

Ms. Annis cleared her throat. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” she said, when both of them had turned to her. “Mordred will be excused from classes until he is well enough to return. Merlin will be suspended for two weeks, during which he will speak to a psychiatrist _and_ a behavioural therapist.” She set her teacup down. “Is that something both of you can live with?”

Nimueh bared her teeth. “Not even remotely,” she said, but she got to her feet and stomped out before anyone could say another word.

Arthur gave Annis a sardonic look. “I do hope you’ve achieved your goal, here,” he said.

Annis inclined her head. “We’ve spoken with Merlin’s caseworker,” she said, “as is protocol. She requests you go see her before you take Merlin home.”

“Lovely.” Arthur got to his feet as well. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Annis,” he said. “I suppose we won’t be seeing you for a while.”

 

The corridor outside the office was deserted, almost dark, with only the windows set into the distant doors providing any sort of light. Arthur strode towards them. He needed air. Air, and five minutes away from everybody.

Soft footsteps trailed after him, stopping abruptly when Arthur whirled around, and somehow, that of all things passed his breaking point. He threw his hands into the air, making Merlin flinch, paced the width of the corridor once, stopped and stared down at the boy. "What the fuck, Merlin. What is wrong with you?"

The boy flailed his hands around, an uncoordinated movement that would have made Arthur laugh any other day. Today, he felt like he might never laugh again.

"You don't know what he did," Merlin protested.

"Oh, please," Arthur barked, with a sharp movement that silenced the boy immediately. "He's six years old, Merlin, what could he have done? What could he have possibly done to deserve that?"

Merlin dropped his gaze. He rubbed his fingers along his nose. “You don’t know what he did,” he repeated quietly.

“Oh, really?” Arthur snapped. “Did he steal your favourite cuddly toy in your past life? I thought we were getting past this, come on.”

With a hissed breath, Merlin drew away from him.

“It’s – it doesn’t matter.” Arthur ran his hand through his hair. “It doesn’t matter what he did.” He tightened his fingers, hoping for the burn to ground him. “For now, let’s just - Let’s just go.”

 

The yard was deserted. School had let out a while ago, leaving a deserted playground behind, and Arthur’s car parked just beyond the gates. With the way things were going, he firmly expected a ticket under the wiper. Instead, the sun was shining overhead and a bird was chirping somewhere. It was a lovely day.

He covered his face with his hands and took a couple of deep, raggedy breaths. It was fine. Everything was going to be fine.

A small hand touched his leg. “Arthur…”

Arthur raised exasperated hands, and Merlin drew back.

“Get in the car, Merlin. Please.”

The boy hesitated. “I didn’t mean to,” he whispered.

Arthur didn’t say anything, and after a long, silent moment, Merlin got into the car.

 

Merlin spent the car ride staring at his toes, and Arthur spent every moment they weren’t actively moving staring at his downturned face in the rear view. The silence in the car was deafening ever since Arthur, in a fit of annoyance, had flicked off the radio, and it was a relief when he finally pulled into the lot behind the Centre for Social Services where Mithian worked.

“Come on,” he told Merlin. “Out you get.”

Merlin cast a sluggish, confused look around, giving Arthur enough time to get out, open the back door and reach for his seatbelt. He lifted Merlin up and out of the car, and that was when Merlin finally seemed to catch on to where they’d gone. He let out a screech Arthur had never heard before, halfway between scream and a whine, and twisted away from Arthur so violently Arthur nearly dropped him. He hardly managed to get the kid out of the car, screaming and flailing, wind-milling hands clipping him underneath the chin.

He swore. “Merlin, stop it.”

Merlin didn’t. Instead, he redoubled his efforts, writhing in Arthur’s hands until Arthur, ears ringing and palms sweaty, gathered his bony wrists in one hand and managed to clamp his free arm tightly around the boy’s waist.

“Will you calm down? What is the matter with you?”

More screaming, more struggling.

Arthur gave him a little shake. “Stop it. Stop it!”

“No!” The boy yanked at Arthur’s hands. “No, I won’t, I _won’t_.”

Arthur hissed when those struggling arms collided with his jaw once again. “Calm down,” he snapped. “I am your king, and you _will_ obey me.”

The boy went silent as abruptly as if Arthur had flipped a switch. All tension seemed to drain from his body and he slumped in Arthur’s hold, feeling more like a ragdoll than the child who had been fighting Arthur so desperately only moments before. Eventually, while Arthur was still holding his breath, his arms came up around Arthur’s neck. Arthur couldn’t tell if he was crying, but that was certainly not just _him_ who was shaking, right there.

Slowly, so as not to disturb the fragile quiet, he closed the kid’s door and let the locks chirp shut. Merlin remained slack in his arms on their way up the stairs and through the main doors, didn’t move even after Arthur had checked them in at the front desk, even though they earned some curious looks from the women behind it. He actually grew quite heavy after a while, but Arthur didn’t feel any particular desire to set him down until they’d taken the elevator up to the fourth floor and found Mithian’s office.

Arthur’s knock echoed strangely down the bleak corridor. He didn’t think the place had been this oppressive the last time he’d been here, but then he also hadn’t had Merlin in his arms, or, after he’d set him down, clinging to his leg like a limpet.

Mithian opened the door like she was marching into battle. One look at the pair of them, though, and she softened, then sighed. “I’ll need to speak to you at some point, but for now I’ll try to keep it short,” she told Arthur. “Come on, Merlin.”

The kid didn’t move.

“Go on,” Arthur said, to similar results.

Mithian gave him a look that very clearly expected him to fix this, so with a sigh and a heavy heart, Arthur dropped down to his knees.

“Mithian just wants to talk to you for a minute,” he said. “And I’ll be right here when you’re done.”

Merlin looked away. “You promise?”

How, _how_ had Arthur ever thought this would be a good idea? Stomach in knots, he turned Merlin back to face him with one hand on his tiny cheek. “I’m not going to leave you here, Merlin, okay? Not now, not ever. Even if you were dying in a ditch somewhere, I’d come find you, okay?”

Arthur didn’t need Mithian’s raised eyebrows to know that was crap as far as motivational speeches went, but wonders never ceased – Merlin actually seemed to calm down a bit. He didn’t reply, but he did nod at Arthur seriously before he shuffled past Mithian into her office.

The woman gave Arthur an exhausted smile before she closed the door in his face, and Arthur took a deep breath. Okay then.

 

He paced for a while, straining to hear even the faintest murmur of voices through the wall. When that didn’t work, he gradually expanded his pacing horizon, returning to the door periodically to see if perhaps they were through already.

They never were, and if Arthur were being honest, he was a bit relieved by the fact. The moment Mithian finished with the kid, Arthur was going to have to take over again, and he still had no idea what to say or do. He wasn’t even sure what to _think_.

Groaning, Arthur pressed his hands to his temples. Coffee would soothe the burgeoning headache, he hope, so he dragged himself down the corridor to where he’d spotted a vending machine.

The caffeine helped, some, despite being terrible, but not enough to steady his hands around the waxed paper cup. Sighing, Arthur bummed a cigarette off a guy flipping through promotional pamphlets nearby and found an exit to loiter outside of. He’d smoked some in his uni days, though never enough to fuck with his endurance for footie. He’d stopped around the time he’d gone corporate, since it was impossible to look imposingly professional while hanging around the back stairs with a fag, but every once in a while he picked up a smoke because just going through the motions calmed him down.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Mordred’s face. Seeing those bruises, and knowing it was Merlin who was responsible for them, that the boy he was so extraordinarily fond of could do that to a defenceless little kid. That at not even nine years old, Merlin was apparently capable of being that irrationally, and indefensibly, vicious. Merlin, who most of the time seemed oddly, well. Sweet.

Arthur smoked his cigarette down to a nub and crushed it under his heel. He wasn’t about to fly off the walls anymore, but he didn’t really feel any less terrible. He wasn’t willing to let Merlin go, he wasn’t, but how on Earth could Arthur claim to be equipped to handle this? He couldn’t even deal with his own issues half the time.

Maybe Mithian could talk some sense into the boy. She had to have experience dealing with difficult children, didn’t she? No doubt she had a degree of some sort. Or Freya, Freya knew what she was doing. Or that psychiatrist he’d taken Merlin to. Maybe his father – no, not his father.

He realized belatedly that he’d begun pacing again and stopped, running his hands through his hair. He already missed his cigarette and was seriously debating going back to find the bloke and asking for another when his mobile rang.

“ _Mr. Pendragon,_ ” Mithian said. “ _Where are you?_ ”

“At the vending machine,” Arthur said, because ‘smoking’ would probably make him look bad.

Mithian breathed in through her nose. “ _Would you mind returning to the office, please?_ ” she said, with a bit of a quake in her voice, and rang off before Arthur could reply.

Frowning, Arthur made his way back to the elevator. His feet sped up seemingly of their own volition, the tone of Mithian’s voice unsettling him more and more the longer he had time to dwell on it.

The lift spat him out after what felt like an age. The hallway was dim, despite the white walls, but Arthur had no difficulty spotting Merlin and Mithian waiting for him, standing side by side by her office door. Merlin watched him approach with no change in expression, clinging to Mithian’s hand so tightly his knuckles were turning white. Mithian didn’t twitch, though, even though it had to hurt.

“Hey,” Arthur said, cursing the guilt that was making his tongue clumsy. He raised questioning eyebrows at Mithian, who looked back impassively, and then knelt down on the hard linoleum floor in front of his kid.

“Hey,” he said. He reached out and caught Merlin’s chin between his fingers. “I said I wasn’t going to leave, didn’t I?”

Merlin’s brows drew together unhappily. “You said you weren’t going to leave me here, but you did.”

Arthur sighed. They could argue the point all day, probably, but he had to admit that in Merlin’s position, he would likely have gotten upset also. “I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding,” he said. “I just went to get a drink. I’d never just leave you somewhere, alright? Especially not after I promised I wouldn’t.”

Unconvinced, Merlin nodded.

“Well,” Arthur said after a while. “Now that we’ve thoroughly let each other down, what do you say we move on from this bit of unpleasantness?”

“Okay,” Merlin said, barely understandable.

With a groan, Arthur lifted the boy and settled him on his hip. Merlin wasn’t usually the cuddly type, but Arthur wasn’t particularly surprised when the kid clung to him with all his might, half strangling him, and buried his face in Arthur’s collar.

“Let’s just go home, hm?” Arthur said.

Merlin nodded immediately without so much as raising his head.

With a sigh, Arthur held his hand out for Mithian to shake. “Thank you,” he said. “Would it be alright if I called you tomorrow?” He indicated the clinging kid with a tilt of his head. “I think we’re done for today.”

Mithian nodded, her lips curling into a commiserating smile. “Tomorrow.” She stepped closer and laid a hand, briefly, on Merlin’s back. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”

“Goodbye, Mithian,” Arthur said. He looked down at Merlin to see if the boy had anything to add, and, when the kid’s eyes narrowed to unhappy slits instead, gave the woman a helpless shrug. “We’ll be in touch.”

 

There were lights on at the house when Arthur pulled the car into the driveway. He flipped off the ignition and leaned his head into his hands. He supposed he should have been grateful that Sophia was there, that there was someone waiting for him to help him carry the burden of parenting, that he could relax and unwind and maybe figure out what to _do_.

Instead, he could only think that the last thing he needed was another round of Sophia and Merlin: The Uphill Battle.

Basically, Arthur was capable of being a father or a boyfriend, but he had no idea how he’d ever come to the conclusion that he could manage both.

Still, sitting in his car in the encroaching dark had never helped him any, and Sophia had no doubt heard the car pull up. A glance in the mirror told him Merlin had fallen asleep in his seat, so at least any flipping out that was likely to happen would at least only be one-sided.

With a deep, heartfelt sigh, Arthur went to extract the kid from his seat for the second time that day. This time, though, Merlin didn’t struggle. He woke up just enough to clamp his knees around Arthur’s waist, giving his already rumpled suit a swift mercy killing, and closed his eyes again.

Arthur’s back was going to kill him tomorrow. So was his boss, and probably various individuals from Merlin’s school. He gritted his teeth and lugged the boy’s dead weight to the door, sliding the key into the lock as quietly as he could. He toed his shoes off in the hall without finding the light switch and followed the dim electric halo spilling out of the kitchen, where Sophia stood by the window, staring out into the dark.

Arthur attempted a smile, a tired greeting at the tip of his tongue, when she caught sight of his reflection in the window and whirled around.

“I’ve been trying to call you for an hour,” she hissed.

Over the mess of Merlin’s hair, Arthur gave her a stern look. She was upset, he got that, but there were times for expressing grievances, and when he had his exhausted kid in his arms wasn’t one of them.

“I was occupied,” he said, voice low, and indicated the boy with his chin.

Her lips tightened unpleasantly. “Too occupied to pick up the phone?” she asked, although at least she, too, kept her voice quiet.

Arthur tilted his head to the side to shoot a quick glance at Merlin’s face. The kid had his eyes shut, although whether or not he was still asleep wasn’t so easy to tell. “Frankly, yes,” he said. He pushed past her into the kitchen, hoping for some left-over coffee. The pot was drained and in the sink. Sophia’s doing, no doubt, and while it wasn’t fair to be irritated with her for cleaning up, he couldn’t help a sharp stab of annoyance.

He shifted the dead weight in his arms, and Merlin moved with him, a grumble of protest escaping his parted lips. Arthur didn’t know, though, if he was easing out of sleep or sinking deeper into it.

“Look,” Arthur said, as quietly as he could without his voice losing its stern note. “I’ve had a long bloody day, and the last thing I want to do right now is fight with you. Anything you want to rake me over the coals for, it can wait until the morning, alright?”

Her glittering eyes followed him on his way out of the kitchen. Arthur bit down on his tongue hard enough to hurt to keep from saying anything else. He concentrated on Merlin instead, on lugging him upstairs, on pulling his shoes and socks off and getting him settled under his bedcovers. He stared down at the boy for a moment, at the sweep of his lashes and the way his dark hair fell into his eyes. With a sigh, he switched off the light, and then he stretched out next to him, at the very edge of the bed, and stared at the slack face.

Merlin was out cold, so deep into sleep that Arthur’s hand in his hair didn’t even make him twitch. He was asleep and likely wouldn’t stir again until well into the morning. There was no reason for Arthur to stay anymore, and yet he found himself unwilling to leave. Instead, he ran his fingers through his kid’s hair, leaning in to kiss his forehead every once in a while. He had no idea what he’d even been thinking, bringing a kid this damaged to live with him. He knew, though, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was going to fight tooth and nail to keep him, now that Merlin was his.

Movement in the hallway had him turning his head. It was Sophia, a black silhouette against the dim light in the hall. He couldn’t see her expression, and when he made no move to get up, she disappeared without a word.


	2. Part 2

Doctor duLac’s smile hadn’t lost any of its charm, even though it’d been a while since they’d seen him.

“Hello, Merlin,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“I beat up a little kid,” Merlin said. He sounded suitably chastened, but Arthur still wanted to go knock his head against the wall.

duLac’s smile slipped, though it didn’t disappear, turning just a little strained instead. “Yeah, Arthur told me about that,” he said. “Listen, why don’t you go on ahead and I’ll be there in a minute? You remember the way?”

Merlin nodded. He made no move to actually leave Arthur’s side, though, not even when Arthur gave him a little nudge.

“Go on, Merlin,” Dr duLac said, still smiling. “I’ll be right there, I promise.” When Merlin hesitated, glancing back at Arthur, he added, “And so will Arthur.”

The boy chanced a glance up at Arthur. When Arthur nodded, he sucked his lower lip into his mouth and, quite slowly, shuffled down the corridor.

When he was gone, Arthur met the good doctor’s eyes and shrugged. “You said to bring him back when he started getting worse, and he did. So I did.”

duLac nodded slowly. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, sounding so earnestly unhappy about it that Arthur couldn’t help but believe him.

Still, he waved him off. “Don’t be sorry,” he said. “Just _do_ something.”

“It’s your birthday soon,” Arthur said over dinner – lasagne this time. Still pasta, but at least it wasn’t spaghetti anymore.

Merlin’s gaze flickered up at him briefly before he dropped it again, blossoming hope quickly squashed.

“And you still need to make up for what happened.” _With Mordred_ ,” he didn’t need to say – from Merlin’s scowl, he knew it all too well.

Arthur watched Merlin stab at his food for a while. He suspected Merlin figured his penance would be his party not happening at all. To be honest, he’d thought about that for about a minute, but various sources – some qualified, like Doctor duLac and Elena, and some like Morgana not qualified at all – had informed him that that was a terrible idea. Apparently actually punishing kids for doing terrible, messed up things like beating up a child half their age was considered quite barbaric. Instead, rather than forbid Merlin from having a party and thus fostering even further resentment towards the other boy, Arthur was supposed to create positive associations. Some new-agey psychobabble like that. It sounded ridiculous to Arthur, but if he tried it and it didn’t work, he’d at least have someone else to blame.

So he took a deep breath and said, “If you want to have a birthday party, you’re going to invite Mordred to it.”

Merlin groaned. “Can’t I just apologize? _Again_?”

Arthur forced himself to keep his face calm, his body still. “That’s not one of the options,” he said. “Either we invite Mordred, or we invite no one.”

For a moment, he was convinced the boy was about to slug him, his face twisted so violently. Instead, Merlin slipped from his chair and stomped out of the room. He came back a moment later to point an accusing finger at Arthur and snarl, “Then no Sophia.”

Arthur felt his jaw tighten in annoyance, but he nodded. “Fine.”

“Fine,” Merlin snapped back. He whirled around on his heel and disappeared upstairs, and a moment later, the boy slammed his door shut loud enough to rattle the dishes on the counter.

Sophia didn’t take the news particularly well. Arthur wasn’t convinced she’d actually wanted to attend Arthur’s kid’s birthday party, but she had made noises about organizing a cake anyway, and her eyes began to swim when Arthur broke the news as gently as he could. He patted her back for a little bit while she cried, although he suspected it was more injured pride and frustration than actual hurt.

He was getting something wrong, he could see that now. He was either a terrible father or a terrible boyfriend, or perhaps both, but there was no way things were supposed to always be this bloody _hard_.

To everyone’s surprise but Arthur’s, Merlin’s invitations extended mostly to adults. There were Elena’s two sons, and then a whole slew of grown-ups. Morgana, of course, Gwaine and Elena, Freya and her boyfriend. Doctor duLac had politely explained why he couldn’t attend, but hung up the invitation in his office on the wall where he kept his patients’ pictures.

Merlin had even, after some dithering, invited his grandparents. Uther in particular had taken to the role of the patriarch – he sat on a lawn chair at the far end of the yard, presiding over the proceedings awkwardly but pleased. They’d brought with them an enormous box that Arthur didn’t even want to know the contents of, but knowing them it was probably a new entertainment centre or a bank vault or something equally ridiculous.

To Merlin’s credit, the kid didn’t really seem to care. He yanked the door open wide every time someone knocked, looking genuinely pleased to see whoever was on the other side. Presents were grinned at and then passed unceremoniously on to Arthur for safekeeping. Despite being demoted to butler, Arthur actually ended up enjoying himself. Merlin’s pleasure was genuine, infectious, grin widening every time someone offered him a hug or a kiss or a ‘Happy Birthday.’

Eventually, of course, it had to happen: Merlin opened the door to find Mordred and Nimueh on the other side, face twisting from an anticipatory grin into a fierce grimace.

Mordred didn’t look any more pleased to be there. Arthur was a little surprised he’d come, actually. He and Nimueh had agreed to extend the invitation to him, but if Arthur was a Year One student invited to the birthday party of the boy who’d beat him to mush, he highly doubted he would have gone. And with a gift in tow, no less.

The two boys scowled at each other. Then Mordred shuffled forward and thrust the present at Merlin, and Merlin, when Arthur nudged him with his knee, muttered an ungracious “Thanks.”

“Hello, Mordred,” Arthur added. “Head on through to the garden if you want. There’s snacks and drinks on the table.”

Mordred gave him a cautious smile before his mother ushered him into the garden with an unenthusiastic greeting of her own, and Arthur grinned to himself as he watched them go. Okay, so Merlin didn’t like him, but honestly, the little boy was adorable.

When he glanced down at his own kid, Merlin was staring up at him, frowning.

“What?” Arthur said.

Merlin shook his head.

“Well then.” Arthur turned him towards the garden with a firm grip on his head. “I think we’ve got everybody now.”

Due to the lack of kids, any traditional birthday party games had been nixed pretty much from the start – to Arthur’s considerable relief. Instead, they’d set up a barbecue in one corner of the yard, shot a prayer at the grey clouds above, and declared the whole thing a garden party. Merlin seemed happy enough to wreck the neglected flower beds with a football, anyway, darting through the clusters of grown-ups with the other kids. Mordred was too young to do much more than bolt after them, but seemed content to do just that, and Merlin was – surprisingly enough – usually up in front with the ball. Arthur figured with both him and Nimueh keeping an eye on their interactions, they would manage to avoid potential bloodbaths for the afternoon.

It worked well enough. Nimueh started out ready to jump in at any moment, but the more time passed with her precious offspring still alive, the more she seemed willing to relax and enjoy herself as well. As it turned out, she’d actually encountered his father in some professional capacity a couple of years back, and Arthur left them chatting with a relieved sigh.

Instead, he bickered with Gwaine over the grill – surprisingly enjoyable, largely due to the fact that Gwaine was his guest and if Arthur ever tired of him, he could be gone in a moment’s notice – and served up burgers and steaks, keeping half an eye on Merlin and half on Mordred once their game ended. Merlin unwrapped presents for a while and Mordred fashioned himself a sash out of discarded wrapping paper, Merlin raided the fridge for drinks and Mordred ate some cookies, Merlin cut his cake and, to Arthur’s utter disbelief, actually handed Mordred his slice with a little smile.

The world was ending, he was sure of it now.

Considering Merlin had invited mostly adults, the party went on a lot longer than – as Arthur was told – children’s birthday parties usually did. Geraint and Galahad eventually curled up in a lawn chair with one of Merlin’s new books. While Nimueh tried to talk fashion with Elena, a fruitless endeavour if Arthur had ever heard one, Mordred drifted over to talk to Morgana. He was so small she had to get down on her knees in her designer slacks just so their eyes could meet, but she didn’t seem to mind the grass stains. Instead, they shared a few more cookies and traded enthusiastic stories about the copy of _The Hobbit_ that Mordred had gotten Merlin. Apparently Mordred had the same. Under the circumstances, Arthur had expected a more pointed gift – a stress ball, perhaps – but apparently it was well-known that Merlin liked his books, and so they now owned a gorgeously illustrated, beautifully bound version of the book along with Arthur’s battered old copy.

It helped that Mordred, when he did occasionally smile, melted all hearts. Morgana was clearly goo already, and Arthur couldn’t help but smirk at that. He suspected she might declare any moment now that Mordred was hers and she was determined to take him home.

Arthur turned his head away, biting down on a laugh. He didn’t want to risk her seeing it and seeking retaliation; not that he really needed to worry, considering how absorbed the two were in each other.

And right across the garden, staring at the pair of them, was Merlin, looking absolutely stricken.

It was heartbreaking to see. Arthur felt a sudden rush of guilt, as well; sure, inviting Mordred had been punishment, but the point had been that perhaps the two might learn to get along. Making Merlin miserable and ruining his birthday had never been part of the plan.

Arthur officially sucked as a parent.

He wasn’t one to wallow in self-pity, though, not when he knew he’d messed something up, so he pushed open the backdoor and raised his voice a little. “Merlin, can you come with me for a second?”

The boy had visible difficulty tearing his eyes away, but he managed after a moment. He came when Arthur beckoned, standing in the open door, and slipped his hand into Arthur’s on the way over the threshold.

He didn’t ask where they were going, so Arthur didn’t have to bother coming up with a convincing lie. Instead, he slid the door shut and ushered Merlin over to the sofa.

“Sit with me for a second,” he said, sprawling out.

With a tentative glance, Merlin sat down at the very edge of the couch.

Arthur watched him for a moment, waiting for those shoulders to unclench or that frown to ease. Neither happened, so, eyes rolling, he seized Merlin by the shoulders and pulled him properly onto the sofa, all the way back into the crease where they kept their half-eaten chips and gummies and the spare remote. He didn’t say anything, though, because Merlin was actually quite the blabbermouth if you let him. And if you kept mum enough, he might even tell you about his problems, whatever they were now.

Sure enough, when the silence had settled enough for them to hear the hum of conversation drifting in from outside, Merlin reached up to rub at his eyes. “I forgot,” he whispered through his fingers. “I was having fun, and he wasn’t so bad, and I forgot to watch out for them, and now I don’t know what to do.”

“Mordred and… Morgana?” Arthur prompted, raising a sceptical brow.

“How could I forget?” Merlin said without looking at him. “How in the bloody hell could I ever forget about them?”

Arthur frowned. “They’ve never met, Merlin,” he said.

Merlin didn’t seem to care about that, just shook his head and whispered, “Stupid, I’m so _stupid_.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Arthur cut in, voice sharp.

The boy blinked at him uncertainly, and Arthur made sure to wear his fiercest frown. “Really, Merlin, whatever you’re worrying about, it’s in your head, okay? Nothing’s happening. It’s just in your head.”

“I hope you’re right,” Merlin whispered. “God, I hope you’re right.”

His quiet resignation was really starting to get to Arthur now. He didn’t know what to _do_ about it, though. Could he call duLac about it, perhaps? There had to be some sort of helpline for this sort of thing, right?

Sternly, Arthur told himself to settle down. Okay, so Merlin was freaking out, that didn’t mean Arthur should do the same. He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself and forced out, “Whatever is bothering you - do you want to tell me about it?”

Merlin shot him a quick, hopeful glance, but after a look at Arthur’s face he shook his head. “You won’t believe me,” he said.

He was probably right, unfortunately, and Arthur wasn’t willing to start lying to him now. “Do you think you can talk to Doctor Lance about it the next time you see him?”

Merlin considered for a moment, then nodded. He’d accepted his standing appointments with the doctor with surprisingly little fuss and usually seemed calmer, if exhausted, after he’d gone. Doctor duLac hadn’t reported any major breakthroughs yet, but then it had only been a couple of weeks, and Merlin diligently completed the assigned homework on how to deal with anger and fear in non-violent ways, so Arthur figured it was working out.

So instead of forcing the issue, he gathered Merlin close and pressed a kiss into his hair. “It’ll be fine,” he said quietly. “Okay? I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

“It’s not me you have to worry about,” Merlin muttered darkly into Arthur’s collar, but he didn’t elaborate, and Arthur wasn’t sure that was a can of worms he was willing to open right now.

“I can handle a six-year-old,” Arthur assured him quietly, trying not to sound affronted. “And Morgana. Quite honestly, I think Mordred is a bit too young to cause much damage at this point in time.” He poked Merlin’s stick-thin arm with a finger. “I seem to remember you getting the better of him not so long ago.”

Merlin drew back, a considering look on his face. “I guess,” he finally murmured. “I guess there’s still time.” He still looked troubled, of course, but allowed Arthur to pull him down fully to rest against his chest.

“Can’t you just have fun on your birthday, like a normal kid?” Arthur asked, with a look towards the heavens.

Merlin shrugged uncertainly within the confines of Arthur’s arms, and then laid his head down on Arthur’s chest and closed his eyes. Outside the party continued on its merry way, adults and kids all mixed together. Mordred said something to make Morgana laugh, his mother watching the proceedings with hawk-like eyes; a moment later, Morgana made her way across the lawn and slid open the glass door to slip inside.

The smile faded from her lips when she caught sight of them, Arthur stretched out uncomfortably on the couch and Merlin motionless on top of him. Frowning, she raised her eyebrows in Merlin’s direction. When she made to speak, though, Arthur quickly shook his head. He patted the boy’s back a couple of times, meaningfully. After a long moment, Morgana withdrew into the kitchen, and Arthur rested his chin on top of Merlin’s hair and sighed.

Saturday brunch was when their luck at avoiding the topic ran out. Morgana set a plate of still sizzling sausages and ham at the centre of the table and sat, slid her napkin gracefully in her lap, and said, “So have you recovered from your birthday, Merlin?” with that particular gleam in her eye.

Merlin gave Arthur a cautious look before he nodded. When Arthur had gone to pick him up at duLac’s office, he’d earned himself a red-eyed little boy and a serious look from the doctor, but apparently whatever they had talked about was no more than a bump in the road. duLac had made noises about seeing how things progressed from here, but was ‘cautiously optimistic’ about the whole thing, and really, there was no reason for Arthur to change anything he was doing. For now.

Arthur blew out a breath. “I should probably make a dentist’s appointment before all that candy rots all the teeth out of his head,” he said, successfully drawing Morgana’s attention away from his kid. He fully expected Merlin to glare at the nature of his distraction, but instead the boy just gave him a crooked little half-smile and used his fork to cut off another piece of his omelette.

Unaware of their silent interaction, Morgana pointed the sharp end of her knife at Arthur. “You know what else could rot the teeth out of your head? Mordred. He’s adorable.” She shook her head, apparently oblivious to the way Merlin blanched and Arthur stiffened. “But his mother _hates_ you, Arthur, what on Earth did you do?”

“Nothing,” Arthur sighed. He’d defended his charge against her even though he was clearly in the wrong, because that was what Arthur did, and apparently that was enough for her to hate both of them for life.

Morgana scoffed, predictably.

Arthur didn’t take the bait. Instead, his eyes were on Merlin across the table, who sat hunched so low that he was about to dip his nose into his breakfast if he wasn’t careful.

“You always do _something_ ,” Morgana chided.

Slowly, Arthur reached past her brandished knife for the pepper shaker. “I don’t really care what Nimueh thinks of me.”

When she eyed him, he rolled his eyes.

“Look, it’s Saturday morning. Can we talk about something fun, rather than my possible quarrel with some woman I barely know?”

Morgana huffed but, after a moment, lowered her knife back down to her mushroom soufflé. “Rob me of my fun, will you?” she sniped. “Could you pass the salt?”

Arthur, who’d grown used to Merlin at least yelling a hello when he unlocked the door, hesitated in the silence. Key in hand, he peered into the empty living room. “Hello?”

“Hi,” Freya said, coming down the stairs in socked feet. “Merlin’s asleep.”

Arthur frowned. “Is he okay?”

Freya shrugged. “A bit whiny, I suppose, but mostly fine. He fell asleep on the tube.”

“Right,” Arthur said. He tried not to feel _too_ unsettled. Little kids were tired sometimes. “Well, thank you.”

“Right,” Freya said, giving him a grin. “Keep him alive until tomorrow.”

It was what she said to him every day, and Arthur grinned back at her, instantly more at ease. As always, he offered her tea that she refused, and saw her to the door.

Then he looked in on Merlin, who was tangled in a throw and breathing deeply if erratically. Mild spot of the flu, perhaps, Arthur figured, and went to lie down for a bit himself, rolling his shirt-sleeves up and half-heartedly picking up the slides for his upcoming presentation to the Hyperion representatives.

Still, it wasn’t long before he managed to lose himself in his notes, making small changes here and there. In the end, the possibility of making the collaboration happen was too much of a temptation for him to half-arse it, and he was writing memos on his phone for things to bring up with his colleagues when Sophia appeared in the doorway.

Arthur blinked at her. She was wearing a very nice champagne-coloured number and had her hair up, and Arthur asked, still concentration-stupid, “Are you going somewhere?”

Sophia’s expectant look quickly turned sour. “ _We’re_ going somewhere,” she said. “Royal Albert Hall, if you recall? The Great Classics concert?”

“You never told me about that,” Arthur protested.

She sighed tiredly. “Yes, I did, Arthur,” she said.

“When?”

“Last Tuesday, when you were shaving. You told me, and I quote, ‘Of course I’ll be there. If Freya can’t take him, I’ll ask Morgana. It’d be good for them.’”

Arthur stared at her. That sounded like something he’d say, actually.

With a sigh, he fumbled around with his phone. “I’ll call Freya right now,” he offered.

Sophia twisted her mouth, unimpressed. “I think I’ll go on ahead,” she told him. “Let me know if you decide to make it.”

“Sophia,” Arthur said.

She didn’t listen to him, just marched out the door and down the stairs. She’d make good on her threat, Arthur was sure, but he didn’t have time to try and appease her if he wanted to be ready in time.

He reached for his phone instead.

Freya, who might well have been Arthur's favourite person at that point, reluctantly agreed to come back just in time for Arthur to make it to the concert if he rushed. Tying his tie blind, he looked in on his kid, but Merlin was fast asleep still, forehead sweaty and cheeks flushed. Arthur shut the door as quietly as he could and then went to prop the front door open so Freya could come right in.

Sophia’s smile, when he slid into the seat next to her during the ‘no mobile phones’ speech, was worth the sweat he could feel under his arms from speed-walking all the way from South Kensington.

The performance was excellent. Arthur had never been much of a culture fanatic, but he did enjoy the occasional highbrow entertainment – something that had fallen almost entirely by the wayside since Merlin… well, since Merlin. When he didn’t have to work, he spent his time with Merlin, and there were few events he wanted to see badly enough to either drag Merlin along or arrange for a sitter.

Sophia smiled at him after _Piano Concerto No.2_ , and Arthur leaned in to give her a quick kiss. “This was a good idea,” he whispered, and her expression turned incredibly sweet.

When he checked his phone at intermission, he was ready to take back his words, since he had two missed calls from Freya and a text that read, _Merlin sick and asking for you._

Frowning, he dialled her number and lifted the screen to his ear, catching Sophia's displeased look out of the corner of his eye. Whatever, plenty of people were checking their phones.

Freya picked up on the fourth ring, sounding tired.

"How is he?" Arthur asked.

"Whiny," Freya said, with a hint of a laugh. "He threw up not long after you left, and then again a little while ago."

Arthur reached up to run at the corner of his eye. Sophia was not going to be pleased.

"Arthur?" Freya prompted.

"Is he awake now?" Arthur asked.

“Yeah,” Freya said slowly. “Hang on, I’ll see if he’s together enough to talk.”

After a moment of clattering and low murmurs, Merlin mumbled a raspy ‘hello’ into the receiver.

Arthur winced. “Hey, kid,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“Bad,” Merlin whimpered. “Are you coming back soon?”

Arthur glanced down at the program in his free hand guiltily. “Not for a little while,” he said. “Do you think you can go back to sleep? You’ll feel a lot better.”

“I don’t know.” Merlin sounded like he was swallowing down tears, and that alone was enough to just about break Arthur’s heart. He swallowed again, and said, “I can try.”

“Good boy,” Arthur said. “I’ll see you in a little while.”

Merlin mumbled an agreement and hung up.

Arthur slid his phone into his pocket. He looked down at the program again, sighed, and went to find Sophia.

She was at the bar when he spotted her, chatting with someone, and frowned when he tugged her away. 

“Merlin’s sick,” he said. “I have to go home.”

She stared at him for a moment before her pretty face clouded over. "You know, if you didn't want to come, you could have just said so."

Arthur was fairly sure that actually no, he couldn't have, but his desire to say as much dropped away when the meaning of her words registered.

"You think I'm making this up?" he hissed.

She gave him a pointed look, and Arthur had to grit his teeth to keep from saying something he might later regret. Sure, he had his faults, and he was aware of them far more than people tended to give him credit for, but he'd always prided himself on his honesty. He forgot things and tended to offend people without even realizing it, found fault in others when he was to blame, was too rough and too loud and too boisterous, and that was on a good day.

But he had positive qualities, too, and he'd always thought his determination to speak honestly what was on his mind was one of them. That Sophia was apparently willing to believe he'd sooner lie than confront her with something he was uncomfortable with was more of a shock to hear than her complete lack of concern for Merlin's health.

He wasn't sure what expression graced his face, but it must have spoken volumes, because he could see the very moment she started to backtrack. “I mean, I’m sure he told you he’s not feeling well-“

Arthur held up a hand. “Just – enjoy the show, will you? I’ll call you.”

The house was quiet when Arthur unlocked the door, the downstairs dark and silent.

"Hello?" he called. "Anybody still alive?"

"Bathroom," Freya called back. She met him at the door with a sympathetic smile. "You made it. Hey."

"How's he doing?" Arthur asked, trying to peer past her, and she opened the door wider in response.

Arthur's heart clenched uncomfortably. His kid was hunched before the toilet, head pillowed on his arms, and Arthur didn't have to see the face to know how miserable he had to be.

"Hey," Arthur said. He slipped his hands into Merlin's armpits and lifted him up, as gently as he could, to rest on his hip. "I heard you decided to make yourself sick with missing me." He brushed the sweaty bangs away from the kid's forehead. "I know I'm fantastic, but don't you think that's a bit much?"

Merlin rolled his eyes, and Arthur instantly felt his worry fade in intensity. If Merlin still had enough energy to be annoyed with him, he could not be that ill.

Still, the small body in his arms felt awfully hot, and Arthur gripped him tight when Merlin's hold on his neck left quite a bit to be desired. "Thank you," he said to Freya. "I know this isn't what you had in mind for the evening, and I appreciate it."

Freya smiled. She reached out to rub a small hand over Merlin's back, and the boy made a pitiful noise in response.

"It's fine," she said. "Feel better, Merlin, okay?"

Merlin mumbled something into Arthur's collar. Arthur shared a grin with Freya over the top of Merlin's hair, and then gently ushered her out of the bathroom. "Are you okay to get home?" He asked her, on the way to the door. "Do you need a ride somewhere?"

"The tube will suit me fine," Freya assured him. Her mouth twisted into a wry smile. "My boyfriend's out with his mates, I might just go and join them. But I suppose that's not a nice thing to mention, considering your evening was cut short."

"The joys of having children," Arthur said, with a wry grimace of his own. He rocked Merlin lightly while she gathered up her coat and purse, patting his back whenever he moaned or groaned or mumbled something. Which was often. Merlin really wasn't the best at suffering quietly.

Once she’d left, striding off into the darkness with her coat flapping behind her, Arthur climbed the stairs and made his way down the hall to his bedroom.

Merlin turned his head away when Arthur flipped on the light.

"Where-?" he managed to ask, and Arthur shook his head.

"My bed," he said. "You need to sleep, and I need to sleep, and Mithian will have my head if you croak during the night."

"You're a prat," the kid croaked. His pyjamas were sticky with sweat when Arthur eased him away from his body and under the covers. Laundry in the future then. Thank goodness Arthur was going to have to take tomorrow off to tend to his sick kid, anyway.

"You adore me," Arthur informed him. "I know you do, it's okay to admit it."

"I adore your bed," Merlin conceded, voice muffled as he buried his face in the covers of the aforementioned furniture. "Your bed is very nice."

"My bed isn't going to clean the bathroom tomorrow," Arthur felt the need to point out, and went to fetch a bucket.

Merlin was still awake, but barely so, when he returned, and Arthur had stripped off most of his suit when the kid coughed himself back into consciousness. Arthur watched him for a moment, fingers pausing on his cuff links, until the fit had eased, before he eased the shirt off his shoulders.

"It's still light out," Merlin mumbled.

"The boy genius, he returns." Arthur slipped the shirt onto a hanger before he, down to his slacks and vest, went hunting for some pyjamas to wear. Wearing boxers to bed while Merlin was in it felt too weird.

"I thought-" Merlin coughed again, long and wet, until Arthur was a hair's breadth away from going over to slap his back. The kid lay flat on his back for a while, staring at the ceiling while his narrow chest rose and fell sharply, until he finally drew a deep breath and didn't immediately start hacking again. "I thought you were gonna be gone for a long time. Freya said you were at a concert."

"I was." Arthur, having finally located a gag gift from Morgana from several years ago, white pyjama bottoms with a bunny's tail attached at the back, pulled his sleepwear over his boxers and stripped off his shirt. He was going to sweat to death as well as look ridiculous, he just knew it. "I came back early because you're not doing so well. Remember? We talked on the phone?"

Merlin lifted his head to peer at him. Arthur made certain to keep his backside firmly turned away from him. He wasn't old enough yet to be mocked by his offspring.

"But you were with Sophia," the boy protested. Either Arthur's subterfuge was working or the kid was too out of it to notice Arthur's attire, either option being something Arthur could live with quite well.

"You said I had to learn to share you with Sophia."

Arthur shrugged off the reminder. "You're sick," he said. "Sophia is also going to have to share, and when you're ill, you take precedence. You are more important than a concert," he added, off the boy's blank look.

"Oh," Merlin said. He sank back into the pillows.

“Close your eyes,” Arthur told him. “All the way, yeah, just like that. I’ll be right back.” He crab-shuffled out of the room and returned a moment later with Merlin’s book tucked under his arm.

Merlin made a questioning noise when Arthur slid in next to him, but kept his eyes obediently shut until Arthur told him it was okay to look. He shot a quick glance at Arthur, tentatively thrilled, and reached for it with clumsy fingers when Arthur nodded.

“Read that one,” Merlin said, jabbing a shaky finger at one dog-eared page. “The one where Arthur is all alone and Merlin is his only friend in the whole world.”

Arthur caught himself before he could accuse Merlin of projecting. He tended to forget, with the way Merlin presented himself, that the kid was just that – a kid. A sick little kid who’d been blown off for Arthur’s girlfriend, for some dumb concert that Arthur couldn’t even recall the name of at this point, and Arthur really could not have felt worse about that if he’d tried.

“You’re so predictable,” he said, with a levity he didn’t really feel, and cleared his throat. “ _Though he was lord of all Albion, King Arthur had in him still the hot blood of youth..._ ”

It didn’t take Merlin very long to fall asleep. He burrowed against Arthur’s body and sighed in sleepy contentment, and then he was out. Arthur kept going for another paragraph just to make sure. Then, slowly, quietly, he shut the book and slipped it onto the nightstand, and pressed his nose into Merlin’s hair. It was too early for him to sleep, really, but there was no reason not to rest with his kid for a while.

He dearly regretted it the next morning when he woke with a sore throat and an unhappily rolling stomach, but, well. Such was life.

Merlin wanted to see ducks. Ducks and swans and herons and pigeons, and although Arthur doubted either of them were really well enough to make the trip, giving in and going seemed like less of a battle than saying no.

Bundled up and still shivering, they wandered around St. James’s Park for a while, mingling in with the tourists and probably suffering more than either of them wanted to admit.

At least Merlin held Arthur’s hand for a while. It wasn’t something he usually did without prompting, and it helped a lot to make Arthur feel better about fatherhood in general.

They walked an ambling round along the ponds, frost clinging to the trees in patches, and then past the little house up Horse Guards Road, where Merlin’s lilting commentary on the squirrels derailed when they caught sight of a protest heading down the street from Horse Guards Parade. It looked fairly scary, a group of mostly men with scarves over their mouths, with signs in their hands and angry yelling. Arthur tugged Merlin close instinctively, although he wasn’t really worried. They were accompanied by several coppers on horseback who had not deemed it necessary to intervene, so even if it wasn’t officially sanctioned, it wasn’t getting out of hand.

Most of the passers-by had stopped or at least slowed, watching the signs come close enough to read. Palestinians, apparently. With recent events, Arthur wasn’t really surprised.

He shivered a little when the wind picked up. He was reasonably sure he still had a fever, and with his free hand holding his coat firmly closed, he zoned out for a little while, staring at the protest and only startling out of it when Merlin tugged on Arthur’s hand.

“Aren’t you going to help them?” he asked.

Arthur glanced at the angry crowd of people. They looked like they’d just as soon lob his head off as accept his help, to be perfectly honest, and he had a kid with him. “They look like they have things well in hand,” he told Merlin.

The boy stared at him.

Arthur squeezed his hand. “Seriously, Merlin, they’re fine. The police aren’t doing anything to them, and they’ve certainly got the attention they wanted.” He tried a hopeful smile. “Are you done with the ducks? Can we go home?”

Merlin went back to staring at the protest. “But what about those people they’re protesting about? Who’s going to help _them_?”

Unfortunately, Arthur had been instilled with too much dignity to tear his hair out in public. “Can we please just go home?”

“Arthur, hello.”

It was Lamia, an executive at one of their partner firms but not someone he knew very well. She was dressed sensibly for the weather, with a long navy coat and boots and a sweetly patterned scarf, and Arthur had rarely felt so acutely aware of being sweaty, pale and unwashed.

He pulled Merlin around with him and forced a smile. “Hello,” he said.

She frowned. “I thought you were out ill.”

Arthur pointed at the thick scarf wrapped around his neck enough times to resemble a second set of shoulders. “We’re just getting out of the house for a bit,” he said. At least he sounded terrible, still, scratchy and phlegmy and run-down.

Lamia glanced down at Merlin for the first time. “That’s…?”

“Merlin,” Arthur supplied.

At the sound of his name, Merlin forcibly pulled his gaze away from the protestors and back to Arthur. “Why won’t you do anything?” he asked.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked back. He offered Lamia a wan smile. The whole scene probably looked terrible, but he was too tired to care.

“ _Anything,_ ” Merlin said. He sounded like he was close to pouting, and tired, and possibly about to cry.

So, basically exactly how Arthur felt.

“I’m afraid we won’t be able to catch up,” he told Lamia. “Merlin and I ought to be on our way.”

The kid made some sort of protesting noise. Trying not to encourage him, Arthur kept his eyes on the woman, who flicked her gaze from Arthur to Merlin and then back again.

Merlin pulled on his hand again. “Arthur.”

Arthur sighed. He squeezed the boy’s hand in warning, and then asked Lamia, “How are things with you?”

“Fine,” Lamia said, with a perfunctory air. She stared at Merlin. “So this is the boy, then.” Her gaze was shuttered; certainly not like she was about to congratulate Arthur on his courageous decision to adopt, so it seemed she’d heard the rumours.

That was actually vaguely worrying. Company gossip was one thing, but Lamia would not be aware of that, so apparently the rumour had left home base and started to float free over London. Londoners, apparently, were willing to believe just about anything.

“Arthur!” Merlin snapped, and Arthur yanked his hand free.

“Merlin, two minutes,” he hissed back. “Seriously, can you keep calm until I’m done here?”

The kid set his jaw and glared at him, and the moment Arthur turned to Lamia, he stomped away.

Still slow from that dreaded flu, Arthur lunged after him and missed. “Merlin!” he warned. It did jack-all, of course, least of all slow Merlin’s sulky departure.

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing he were still in bed. Clearly, getting up that morning had been a mistake.

When he opened his eyes, Lamia was watching him, not-quite-sympathetic.

Arthur forced an unconvincing smile. “Yes, that’s him,” he said. “Anything I can do for you right now? Because I do have my PR-stunt kid to take care of.”

The woman frowned. “You ought to take these things a little more seriously, Arthur. They’re grave allegations.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. Merlin was almost out of sight, now, and Arthur was really going to have to sprint after him to keep him from getting himself run over.

“Yes, fine,” he said, already walking away. “Call me when it turns into a scandal.”

It didn’t turn into a scandal.

Frankly, Arthur would have been thrilled if anybody cared enough about the work he did for it to turn into some scandal. Instead, there was a blurb on page 27 of the Sun, and some environmental blogs questioning his morals, each with a couple thousand hits each.

Arthur rolled his eyes and went back to work.

To Arthur’s absolute amazement, Merlin tried being nice to Sophia for a while. Well, ‘nice’ was a bit too strong a word, but nicer. Civil. He said hello and goodbye and poured her tea when Arthur asked him to, mostly without pulling any faces.

Sophia, on the other hand. She stayed frosty, not just with Merlin but with Arthur, too. Not even Arthur going bright green during an ill-advised lunch date when he wasn’t yet fully recovered took the sting out of the humiliation she’d apparently endured, watching a concert at the Royal Albert Hall with an empty seat next to her. Arthur wanted to feel bad, he did, but he was running on half his usual energy, and his sympathy for her plight all but evaporated when Merlin returned from his first day back at school in exhausted tears.

Distantly, patting Merlin’s back while he hiccupped into Arthur’s shirt, Arthur wondered if it was really worth it. Sophia was supposed to make him feel better in times like these, not worse. She was supposed to be the one he relied on when the going got rough, not the one to make disappointed noises at him when he was down.

But then, it wasn’t like Arthur didn’t have his bad days. It wasn’t like he didn’t make her feel neglected and rubbish and convenient, which he knew quite well since she’d made certain to tell him. He wasn’t a dream partner and neither was she, so who was to say they didn’t deserve each other?

Things being what they were, Arthur was a little surprised when he answered a call from Sophia one afternoon to find her squealing in his ear, high-pitched and excited, interspersed with delighted laughter. She’d gotten a promotion, he figured out eventually, along with a fancy bottle of wine Vivienne would no doubt raise her nose at, but was probably the best Bordeaux Sophia had ever had.

“I’m happy for you,” Arthur said, and even with things being strained the way they were, he meant it.

“ _Let’s celebrate_ ,” she said in a rush. “ _Tonight. I’ll come over, bring my wine, it’ll be great._ ”

Arthur bit his lip. “Merlin…”

“ _Will be there, yes, I know_.” Her tone softened again. “ _I know, alright? I just want to see you._ ”

How could he say no to that? “Tonight,” he said, and smiled at her excitedly babbled response.

Sophia _was_ in a good mood. She unlocked the door, set her bottle – with a red bow, even – down on the kitchen counter and dragged Arthur to his bedroom for some extended kissing that almost turned into more before Arthur remembered his kid wandering around the house, wide awake and nosey as hell, and regretfully detached himself.

“Let’s go open your wine,” he said.

With a reluctant huff of breath, she tugged her top back into place.

Arthur wiped the gloss from his neck and lips and took her hand. “Later,” he said.

Dusk had started to set, the house not quite dark but steadily growing dimmer. There was light on in the kitchen, and rummaging, and when Arthur tugged Sophia over by the hand, he found Merlin by the sink, pouring cornflakes into a bowl.

“Hey, kid,” Arthur said.

Startled, Merlin whirled around, knocking his elbow into an assortment of things by the sink – a knife holder, various cooking oils, a spice rack. A good half of them clattered onto their sides (thankfully not the knives), made worse by Merlin’s frantic hands, trying to end the mess before it began and of course only succeeding in making it worse. The cereal spilled into the sink. The lid on Arthur’s tea jar went flying. As if in slow motion, Sophia’s bottle of wine rolled along the counter, caught on the rim for a brief moment and then, almost gently, tipped over the edge.

With a sound of warning caught in his throat, Arthur watched Merlin throw out his hand like some sort of superhero, and a moment later the bottle shattered on the tiles, sending bits of glass scattering all over the kitchen and soaking the boy’s socks in angry red liquid.

Sophia’s bellow of outrage was surpassed only by Merlin’s howl, some sort of noise that wasn’t quite anger and wasn’t quite despair, but good lord, there was enough frustration there to tempt the gods. The sound hadn’t even faded yet when Merlin swept his bowl off the counter as well, leaving that to shatter at his feet, too, and hurled his cutlery after the porcelain for good measure.

“Stop it!” Arthur snapped at him.

Merlin blinked, and then again, before his wretched expression shifted into something more appropriately like guilt.

Arthur pointed a finger at him. “Do not move,” he said. “I’m not going to A&E tonight, so if you cut your feet open, you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

Merlin nodded, his lower body staying obediently motionless, and Arthur went out into the hall to fetch some shoes. He passed by Sophia, who had moved on to disbelieving sputtering, on the way, but he found he didn’t really care about her outrage at the moment. She was an adult, she just had to live with it for now. Truly, really, honestly, the only thing Arthur cared about right now what getting Merlin out of their mess of a kitchen without grievous harm. Anything else was going to have to wait until after.

Armed with his cheapest trainers, a broom and a dustpan, Arthur waded through the stained kitchen and over to the kid. “Watch out,” he said before lifting the kid straight into the air and onto the kitchen table. “Stay there,” he said. “Let me know if there are any pieces I’ve missed.”

The boy watched silently, almost solemnly, when Arthur got to work sweeping up the worst of the mess. The wine stains only got more horrifying as he went on, but at least the big, nasty glass and porcelain shards were gone. Merlin helpfully directed him to a couple smaller bits that had slid all the way under the fridge, and then, when Arthur lifted him over to the sink, filled a bucket with hot water and soap and then pulled off his dripping socks to leave on the counter. Arthur ran his hand through the boy’s hair, once, as he went for the cupboard where they kept the rags. He tried not to think of Sophia, still outraged, hovering by the door as she waited impatiently for her shot at his attention.

The tiles were barely even shaded pink by the time Arthur suddenly ran out of steam. He leaned the broom against the wall, dropped the rag into the bucket, and urged Merlin off the counter. “Go upstairs and change,” he said. “Leave whatever’s stained in the tub.” When Merlin tilted his head to regard him with a curious expression, Arthur caught Sophia’s outraged expression out of the corner of his eyes and added, “Stay in your room until I come get you, if you please.”

Merlin nodded. Arthur thought he felt a small, supportive hand brush his thigh as he went, but the touch was too quickly gone for him to be sure.

Arthur took a look at Sophia and the stern tilt to her mouth. It didn’t bode well for what was to come, and Arthur sat down in one of chairs and put his face in his hands.

“Tea?” Sophia asked, voice sharp.

Arthur nodded wearily. He could feel a spark of hope that perhaps Sophia might not make a big deal out of this, that she’d understand for once and they could end the evening without disaster, but that hope was dashed when she began banging around the sink, muttering under her breath about sabotaging little boys.

Arthur rubbed at his eyes. “You know it was an accident, Sophia, you were there.”

“I know it _looked_ like an accident,” she grumbled. “I know he’s clumsy, but that’s just awfully convenient, isn’t it.”

Arthur stared at her. He blinked, slowly, but she didn’t attempt to mince her words. She didn’t even seem to notice that she’d just accused Arthur’s _kid_ of being that spiteful, and that, more than anything, was what threw Arthur for a loop. He’d known that it was hard on her, Merlin treating her the way he did, but the boy was simply not malicious. Difficult and bratty and twisted and a bit funny in the head, perhaps, but he was never _mean_.

Sophia set the kettle down with a thud. “It sure is handy when you get away with everything,” she said. It was half under her breath, but Arthur heard.

He heard, and he didn’t like it. “Oh, put a sock in it,” he muttered.

Sophia whirled around, catching him off guard, and gave him a sharp glare. “What was that?” she demanded.

“You heard me,” Arthur shot back just as sharply, “I’ve had it up to here with the way you try to undermine my relationship with Merlin at every turn. Like it or not, Merlin is my kid, and maybe he doesn’t treat you with proper decorum but he’s a _child_ and you’re a grown woman, so perhaps you ought to lay off him for a while.”

Sophia’s eyes went wide. “He _hates_ me,” she said.

Arthur threw his hands into the air. “How many children do you know that actually like their parents’ new partner? You’re his de-facto stepmother and he’s jealous and frightened, and quite honestly, you’re not doing a whole lot to disabuse him of that notion.”

“Oh, so this is my fault, now?”

“I didn’t say that,” Arthur hissed. “God, could you be any more typical?”

“ _Typical_?” she screeched, and Arthur winced. “You’re the one running away at the first sign of commitment-“

“I’m plenty committed!” Arthur snapped at her. “I’ve adopted a child, my dear, in case you’ve forgotten. Perhaps it’s just _you_ I don’t feel like committing to.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” she snapped, a bitter twist to her mouth, “You don’t want to play house anymore, so you’re using your charity case as a get out of jail free card.”

Arthur pointed a finger at her, suddenly angry. “I’ve just about had enough of you,” he growled, “and I have _certainly_ had enough of you talking about Merlin that way.”

“Oh, whatever,” Sophia said. The anger seemed suddenly drained from her voice, replaced by a sharp coldness instead. “Hide behind that boy all you want. If you wanted me gone, you could have just said so.”

She picked up her purse. Arthur could see her fingers shaking, but her voice, when she turned back to him, was steady and chilled. “I always thought you would be less of a coward than that. Shows how well I knew you, I suppose.”

“Suppose so,” Arthur said quietly. He watched her struggle into her shoes even though he could tell she didn’t want his eyes on her, from the way she refused to even turn slightly in his direction.

She slipped her coat from the hook by the door and let the door shut loudly behind her without once looking back.

Arthur sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. He’d always wondered how exactly relationships died, but apparently there was no secret ingredient. One day, you just woke up having had enough.

Slowly, feeling like an old man, Arthur pushed himself up and shuffled over to the sink. He put the kettle on, ran his fingers through his hair and over his face, and finally leaned his elbows on the kitchen counter and put his head into his hands.

Merlin’s, “Come in,” when Arthur knocked, was impressively pitiful. As usual, the boy had taken refuge pressed against the headboard of his bed, knees pulled up to his chest and his toes just barely covered by the blanket. Merlin, of course, was leafing through his King Arthur book, although Arthur doubted he was taking in a single word. In any case, the boy put the book down when Arthur squeezed in next to him, and attempted a sad excuse for a smile.

“Is she still mad at me?”

Arthur ran his hand through Merlin’s terrible haircut, never mind the way the kid turned away from him. “You don’t have to worry about Sophia anymore, okay?”

Merlin blinked at him, eyes wide. Arthur wasn’t sure Merlin had picked up on what his words really meant – subtle wasn’t the kid’s strong suit – but he didn’t feel like having a conversation about it right now, in any case. He shifted, and then winced, and pulled Morgana’s garishly orange Christmas gift out from where it had been poking him in the kidneys.

“I forgot about this thing,” he said, laughing a little. He dangled it in the air by one plastic wing.

Merlin reached up to press the hidden button, and Arthur winced when the toy bellowed, “ _It is your destiny_ ,” right in his face.

He plunked the toy in Merlin’s lap, who carefully righted it and made it roar in response.

Overcome by some sort of strange nostalgia, for the better days before Sophia, before he had his heart broken by some twat and he couldn’t even say he didn’t deserve it, Arthur smiled wryly. “You know, I absolutely hated that thing at first. Goes to show you can get used to just about everything, I guess.”

Except for Sophia and her conniving ways, apparently, but that wasn’t the point.

“I didn’t like him either, at the beginning,” Merlin said.

Arthur frowned. The way he remembered it, Merlin loved the damn thing the moment he tore off the wrapping paper. “You didn’t like it?” he asked.

“He can be a right pain in the arse,” Merlin mumbled. “All that ‘destiny’ stuff, ‘do this’, ‘do that’, ‘how dare you try to save your friends.’ I’ll tell him what he can do with that coin of his.”

Mystified, Arthur gave the plastic dragon a once-over. As far as he remembered, it only played the two recordings. Maybe it was a special edition?

Merlin shot him a quick look. He hugged the toy to his chest and mumbled, as if to get it over with, “I can apologize if you want me to.”

Subtlety was a lost art, apparently. Arthur sighed. “Sophia and I _broke up_ , Merlin. So no, you don’t have to apologize.”

“Oh,” Merlin said.

“Yes, oh,” Arthur echoed, and tried not to notice the boy’s delighted smile.

It was damned hard not to notice the impromptu party Morgana and Merlin threw at their next brunch get-together, though Arthur tried. He tried not to notice the two of them high-fiving each other when he was in the kitchen, or how his pancakes had smiling faces on them. He tried not to twitch in response when Morgana proposed a toast to ‘finally coming to one’s senses.’ By the time she decided they needed to watch The Wizard of Oz and the two performed an off-key rendition of _Ding, dong, the witch is dead,_ complete with hand movements, he’d moved on to simply trying not to laugh.

Arthur hated Oxford Street and Regent Street during Christmas season, but he still took Merlin to see the lights and the window displays at Selfridges. They even did Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park one weekend, though only for thirty minutes in which Arthur failed to shoot enough balloons to win Merlin a gigantic stuffed tiger and refused to go on any of the ridiculous rides. Merlin pouted, and Arthur didn’t care.

Every once in a while he’d catch himself thinking of Sophia – not wistfully, Lord no, but simple things – he’d see a scarf she would have liked, or reach for her favourite wine at the Co-op, or expect an incoming text to be from her.

He didn’t really miss her.

Instead, he missed having someone adult to talk to – Merlin was great, and wise beyond his years sometimes, but he was a kid who did kid things. He didn’t get what it was like to sit in an office all day with a whole bunch of responsibility on his shoulders and no one telling him what was right or wrong. And he didn’t understand that, much as Arthur loved having Merlin around, raising a child was draining – even when they didn’t get into arguments and the school didn’t call and Merlin didn’t whine because his feet hurt and he was cold, Arthur was constantly on guard around him, watching for people who might bowl him over and crowds he might get lost in and escalators he might tumble down. Sometimes Arthur just wanted to pass Merlin off to someone else and talk to a real-life, grown-up person with grown-up problems. Because quite frankly, Arthur really needed to occasionally chat with someone who he thought had their shit together, and his family, who he interacted with the most these days, really didn’t rank  
very high on the maturity scale.

But he couldn’t. He’d said he’d be responsible for Merlin’s welfare and he wanted to be, and he’d said he no longer wanted to be with Sophia and that was the truth, too, so Arthur braved Anthropology and the East India Company and Hamleys and contented himself with carols and cookies and punch-sticky fingers grappling at his suit for now. Better luck next year.

Apparently the children from Year 4 were expected to put on a nativity play the second-last Friday before the holiday. Arthur had received the invitation and cleared his schedule with a sigh, but Merlin had kept absolutely mum about it. In fact, he hadn’t said much about school at all, so it was half a surprise and half not a surprise at all when Arthur received a call around noon that very day, asking him if he wouldn’t mind arriving a little earlier for a ‘brief discussion.’

Arthur agreed, took a moment to breathe deeply, and settled down to work double-time until it was time to go.

“If it’s urgent, leave a message on my mobile,” he told Sefa, who’d recently taken over the assistant desk outside of his office, around three. “I should be able to check it before too long.”

“Where are you going?” she asked.

Arthur wasn’t sure if she wasn’t yet experienced enough to know not to ask or already too jaded to care, but she seemed like a nice enough girl for the most part. “To my son’s nativity play,” he said. He added a playful roll of his eyes, which succeed to make her laugh, and probably convinced her he was a laid-back enough guy that she could ask, a little hesitantly, “Aren’t you a bit… young to have a child that age?”

“Merlin’s adopted,” Arthur said, because even though technically twenty-one wasn’t shockingly young to have a child, it was still plenty young enough to make him look bad on top of not actually being true.

“Oh,” she said, looking down.

Arthur wasn’t sure what to make of that – of her in general, actually – so he tipped two fingers to his temple and smiled. “Wish me luck,” he said. “If I get torn apart by primary school kids, have a drink in my honour.”

Her lips quirked a little, even though she didn’t look up, and Arthur slung his coat over his arm and went to prostrate himself in front the altar of Ms. Annis.

It was depressing how quickly Arthur found his way through the empty school to the principal’s office. Merlin sat hunched on one of the cheerfully coloured children’s chairs in the corridor, glaring at the lovely and rather expensive canvas boots Morgana had taken him to buy. He looked up when he heard the clack of Arthur’s soles on the linoleum, and then back down, which was something Arthur had learned to be wary of.

Still, he leaned down kiss the top of Merlin’s head. “Hello, kid,” he said.

Merlin scowled.

“It’s nice to see you too,” Arthur said. He couldn’t help the sarcasm – it just seemed to come out when he was _really_ not looking forward to something. Call it a family flaw.

Merlin shrugged.

With a sigh, Arthur pulled him off the stool and tugged his uniform jacket back into place. “So, tell me what I’m readying myself for. Did you break any laws this time?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Merlin said sullenly.

Arthur sighed. “Believe it or not, m’boy, I don’t get these calls every day, so _something_ must have happened.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t do anything,” the kid insisted.

Arthur bent down until they were face to face, and said, “Did you neglect to do something you should have? Technicalities aren’t going to get you out of trouble, you know.”

Merlin crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked away.

“Right,” Arthur said, eyebrows climbing. He couldn’t wait to find out which part Merlin was supposed to have in the play – clearly nobody saintly with that scowl, which eliminated most of the roles. Arthur’s last encounter with nativity plays had been when _he_ was still a boy, and he couldn’t remember any parts for children who looked like they’d rather be elsewhere.

He wanted to say something paternal, something encouraging and kind with just a spark of wisdom, hopefully something that would pull Merlin from his funk and guide him through the troubling years ahead. But one look at that frown and the only thing he could think of saying was, ‘Seriously, again?’ so he shook his head and knocked on the door instead.

Ms. Annis’ lips were twitching, which was either good news or really, _really_ bad. “It seems, Mr. Pendragon,” she said, pointedly looking over an attendance sheet, “that of the ten mandatory rehearsals for the play, Merlin attended – zero.”

Eyebrows rising, Arthur glanced over at Merlin, who, slouched in the chair next to him with his arms crossed, glared at his knees.

“Right,” Arthur said. He reached over to pull the boy into an at least semi-upright position and left his hand on Merlin’s arm afterwards. His grip on the boy was probably painfully tight, but much as it pained him to say it, the kid probably deserved it.

“Unfortunately,” Annis said, her brows climbing upwards, “this means that Merlin will not be able to participate in the play, since he does not know his part. Or any part, for that matter. And quite honestly, we’ve been quite lenient with Merlin so far, Mr. Pendragon, and eventually his behaviour will carry consequences.” She tilted his head. “A suspension, or worse.”

Arthur gritted his teeth. “Begging your pardon, Ms. Annis, that might not be the best idea.”

Annis’ eyebrows rose even higher. “How so?”

“Because, if Merlin were to be suspended, or worse, there would naturally be questions as to why.” Arthur flashed her the least pleasant of his selection of professional smiles. “And then I might ask how exactly my kid has been evading you for, apparently, weeks. He’s nine. It’s not like he’s been sneaking off for a smoke behind Tesco’s.”

Annis’ expression turned a little bit pinched. “I assure you, it will not happen again,” she said.

“I should hope not,” Arthur said. “I’ve entrusted you with Merlin’s well-being, after all, and if you cannot even keep track of him during class rehearsals, that really doesn’t imply anything positive about this school.” He smiled, with a bit too much teeth to really be pleasant. “So do please keep a closer eye on him in the future.”

Merlin huffed dramatically.

It served him right, Arthur figured. It served them _all_ right.

Annis met his eyes for a long moment. “Like I said, it will not happen again.” She waited for Arthur’s nod before she waved a hand. “In any case. The nativity play _is_ mandatory for all children of Merlin’s year, so even though he obviously cannot be in it at this point, Merlin does at the very least have to attend the showing."

Arthur tightened his grip on Merlin's arm. "Of course," he said.

Merlin shifted unhappily next to him, but stilled when Arthur rewarded him with a glare.

It didn't help his mood any that Annis looked like she was laughing at them again. "Off you go, then," she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Merlin knows the way to the auditorium."

"Right." Arthur stood, dragging Merlin with him. "My apologies for taking up your time."

She repeated that absent, careless motion of her hand, attention diverted elsewhere. For propriety's same, Arthur waited for another half-moment before he let himself out, Merlin following reluctantly behind.

The moment the principal's door had shut behind them, the boy wrenched his arm free.

"Don't think you're out of trouble yet," Arthur warned him, and, as befitting his grand authority over the kid, Merlin didn't even deem his words worthy of attention. Instead, he glared mutinously at his shiny shoes, and Arthur sighed, chalking that discussion up as another one to have one of these days – meaning never.

“Come on,” he said, ushering Merlin past the pretty blonde receptionist, Vivian according to the sign on her desk, who looked like she’d rather be anywhere but at work right now.

Arthur offered her a tired smile. “Sorry if we’ve been keeping you.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Vivian said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She giggled a bit and curled her hair behind her ear, and as ridiculous as it was, Arthur could feel himself respond in kind to the blatant flirting.

“I won’t be sorry if you’re not sorry,” he said, lips twisting into a smile, and, when she laughed again, added a little wink.

“It’s not the worst thing to happen today,” she said, with a glance upwards through her lashes.

“Oh my _God_.”

Arthur had forgotten all about Merlin for a moment, but Merlin clearly had never studied the art of discretion, because he had zero compulsion tugging on Arthur’s shirt.

“Stop it, that’s gross.”

“You’re gross,” Arthur said, pushing him away. “Why don’t you go figure out the fastest way to the auditorium?”

“I _know_ the way,” Merlin told him.

When he spun around with a roll of his eyes, Arthur offered Vivian an apologetic shrug. In response, she slipped him her phone number when Merlin’s back was turned. Arthur tucked it safely into the inside pocket of his coat before he trotted after his kid, who stomped all the way to the auditorium to make his displeasure known.

The play was awful. The other parents, Arthur supposed, at least had their own offspring on stage to coo and fawn over. His neighbour, at the very least, spent quite a bit of time telling her companion all about how adorable and precious her daughter looked as one of the angels. Apparently her appearance of an heavenly little princess matched her personality for once. Arthur had to concede he couldn’t really blame Merlin for trying to get out of participating – since there were apparently no devils or crotchety old men in the play, there really wasn’t a role to suit him.

Thankfully, years of attending events for children’s shelters had taught him how to remain expressionless even in the face of the most off-key singing, so Arthur sat through it all without disgracing himself. Merlin at his side was a lot less gracious about it – he seemed to settle into a funk around the time the second innkeeper forgot his lines, slumping down in his seat with his arms crossed in front of him, and kept them resolutely crossed when everyone on stage bowed clumsily and the parents in the room burst into thunderous applause.

Whatever it was that was wrong _now_ , he kept it up all the way through their shuffle out of the auditorium and into the foyer, where they ran into Elena and her men of varying ages and maturity. 

Arthur could have sighed in relief. Finally, somebody who actually made _sense_ most of the time. He kissed Elena on the cheek with an overly enthusiastic smile, exchanged a nod with Gwaine and bumped fists with Geraint. Galahad clung to Elena’s leg and didn’t seem interested in much besides the buttons on his overalls.

“Hi, Merlin,” Elena said.

Merlin didn’t look up. If anything, his scowl grew even more pronounced, despite the fact that he reached out to fist the fabric of Arthur’s slacks.

Elena raised her eyebrows.

Arthur shrugged.

“Right,” she said. “Have a good Christmas, then.”

Arthur couldn’t help but chuckle at that. Of all the times he’d imagined himself with a family – and he had, quite often, with varying degrees of horror – he’d never thought he’d eventually end up the single parents of The Weird Kid, the one child that had antisocial tendencies even people like _Gwaine_ were reluctantly impressed by.

“You too,” he said, to both of them, and then to the kids. “Merlin?” he asked, but Merlin just shook his head, so Arthur shrugged again.

“I was thinking we might go to the Aquarium over break,” he said. “If you want to come.”

They left him with extracted promises to call and then bundled their children out into the car park, and Arthur looked down at his kid. The hall was clearing out. Not much longer now and they’d start attracting looks. “Can we go?” he asked pointedly. “People are starting to stare.”

Merlin let go of Arthur’s clothing like it had suddenly turned boiling hot. “I guess I’m just weird then,” he said. “You should get used to that.”

Pointing out that Arthur was, quite honestly, already growing rapidly used to it seemed needlessly cruel. “If we’re going to have a scene, can we at least do so at home? It’s cold, Merlin, and I’m tired.”

It was the wrong thing to say; Merlin’s jaw jutted out in a way that had a shudder of dread running down Arthur’s spine.

“I’m sorry I’m not more convenient for you, then,” the kid snapped. “So _sorry_ I’m not your perfect little slave. You probably still wish I was more like George.”

Arthur gave a heartfelt sigh. Back to this, then. “I don’t know George, Merlin, and I don’t give a lick about George. Are we really going to fight about some shadow you can’t let go of?”

Merlin looked away, struck suddenly silent the same way he had burst out with this most recent tantrum a moment ago. His breath hitched a little bit, and really, fuck everybody watching them with badly disguised interest. Arthur didn’t care about them anymore.

He knelt down in front of his kid, horrified to find the entire boy shaking like he might fall apart any moment now. He lifted his hands to calm him, give him some touch to ground him, but considering he could see the white of the boy’s eyes, he thought better of it at the last moment.

He was so tired, though. He just wanted to rest for a century, even though, according to this kid, he already had. “Merlin, what is this about?”

“I’m never good enough for you,” Merlin bit out. “I’m never _going_ to be good enough for you. I’ll always be trouble and weird and you’ll get calls from school and the other kings will get mad at you and I won’t ever be as good at polishing as George was, and you always liked him better anyway.”

“Does it matter?” When Merlin made to turn away, Arthur seized him by the shoulders. “Seriously. Kid. This thing with George, if it really happened was, what, a thousand years ago? Okay, it sounds like I was an arse at the time, but I don’t know that guy and he’s not here, okay? He’s not here, and I am, and you are, and maybe that’s the part you should be focusing on.”

For a moment, Arthur really thought that might have worked. Merlin’s eyes lit up, and he stopped shaking, and then a moment later his face crumpled and he hid it behind his hands. “But why are we here?” he asked through his fingers. “What are we doing watching terrible plays and playing house? It can’t be the point of it all.”

Suddenly, Arthur felt an awful lot like hiding behind his fingers as well. “Can we just go home?” he asked. Pleaded. “Please?”

Merlin tipped his head to the side. His expression didn’t lighten, but he must have seen _some_ thing in Arthur’s face, because after a moment, he gave a curt, uninviting nod.

Arthur felt like a coward, driving out to his father’s house on Christmas Eve, but he couldn’t not. Merlin had spent the last two weeks moping more or less quietly, and Arthur was at the end of his rope – if he had to spend twelve supposedly joyous hours before they headed to Morgana’s for Christmas dinner in awkward, touchy silence, he wanted to at least have the opportunity to pass Merlin off to someone to watch before he locked himself in the bath to cry.

And anyway, his father and Vivienne looked cautiously pleased about the company. Vivienne even enlisted the cook’s help so she and Merlin could try their hands at Christmas cookies. Arthur’s father looked on dubiously, so Arthur, satisfied that no matter what disaster might befall them, _somebody_ should be capable of calling 999, sneaked a beer out of the fridge and hid in the upstairs living room. Hopefully, with so many rooms and quite a bit of ground to cover, nobody would find him again until next year.

He called Vivian’ on New Year’s Eve, still hiding at his father’s house, after rediscovering her number during a trip to the dry cleaner’s. He kept half an eye on Merlin, laid out on the couch and blankly watching the oversized telly, and turned his head away to speak to her. It was a couple of hours until midnight, yet, but her end of the line was loud and boisterous.

She sounded happy to hear from him. She sounded _happy_ , period, and with one eye on his miserable kid, Arthur asked her for a date. She wasn’t really his type at all – ditzy and giggly and possibly a lush, but she was clearly having a good time, and Arthur was beginning to suspect he needed something in his life that didn’t make him want to claw his eyes out in misery.

Arthur’s department had recycling, but, hair-raisingly stupid as it was, only a few large containers by the break room and none in the offices. It was better than nothing, but it did mean that he occasionally had to interrupt his work to go get rid of the papers constantly cluttering up his desk, and since there was always somebody or other hanging around the coffee machine, more often than not, it meant getting dragged, kicking and screaming, into some inane conversation. Arthur cared about his co-workers, he did – he just didn’t care about their bad-mouthing his _other_ co-workers, and in all honesty, that was all the break room chatter seemed to be about.

Today, it was Andrea and Claire who set on him when he walked past, each with one of the office’s disposable paper cups in his hand. Most people had managed to bring in a mug by now, thank God, but a couple of his colleagues were apparently still unaware of rainforest deforestation.

“So, Arthur.” Andrea flashed him a dazzling grin. “You’re back to work, I see.”

Arthur, with a stack of obsolete paperwork in his hands, headed for the paper bin. “I’m always at work,” he said absently.

Claire sidled up next to him. “You weren’t at the New Year’s party.”

It was true, he hadn’t been. He’d forgotten all about it until about two hours before, and by then it’d been too late to organize a babysitter. And honestly, the thought of bringing Merlin to the company with him filled him with dread, even without all the rumours flying around.

Arthur flipped through the papers one more time, double-checking that he really was done with all of them. “Blame my kid, there was some school issue I had to deal with.”

Claire nodded wisely. “The one you adopted to help with the Hyperion negotiations.”

Arthur binned the stack more forcefully than strictly necessary. “Oh, please, do start in on that rubbish,” he said. “Let’s all assume I could not possibly have a reason for adopting a child other than a business transaction.”

The two women exchanged a look.

“Touchy, touchy,” Andrea muttered under her breath.

“Believe whatever you want to believe, I don’t care anymore.” Arthur pointed at the paper cup in her hand. “And for the love of God, stop killing the planet. Bringing in a reusable mug is not that hard.”

Vivian did giggle a lot – in fact, Arthur could hardly get a word in edgewise for all her laughter, and sometimes he wasn’t sure he liked her sense of humour very much. But it was worth it for the way she managed to make _him_ laugh, as well. He topped off her wine – red, Pinot, at an Italian restaurant, boring but comforting in its predictability – and let himself be carried away by her good mood.

“That’s a nice love bite ya got there,” Gwaine said, after a long kick sent all three boys scrambling down the slope. “New gal?”

Arthur shrugged, although he was grinning. He hadn’t liked anyone since the Sophia Incident –since halfway through the Sophia Incident, if he was being honest – and it was nice, feeling smitten like this again. Vivian made him feel like someone who got things right, at least some of the time – she laughed at his jokes and admired his work and liked his body. She didn’t randomly start talking about past lives or his destiny as a great leader or silently judge him on everything from his shoes to his personality. He liked being around her, liked the way she made him feel like somebody capable, for a change.

Okay, so she wasn’t really the mature, intelligent adult he’d been hoping for. She was still a lot of fun.

In February, Arthur was called to in to discuss Merlin’s abysmal grades. He also got called in to duLac’s office to discuss Merlin’s risk of depression, and into his boss’ office once more because apparently it was a slow week for the presses and old news were being recycled. Arthur nodded and said ‘yes’ a lot, and tried not to snap at Merlin because it wasn’t like the boy was _trying_ to be difficult, even if it was technically all his fault.

“That sounds rough,” Vivian said, one Saturday afternoon when Elena had spirited Merlin away to the cinema and Arthur was lying on Vivian’s sofa, trying not to have a meltdown. Her pillows were dark enough to hide any stains, probably, but he had the feeling it was still too early into their relationship to get snot all over her couch.

She was rummaging through the fridge – he could barely see her going through her flatmates’ shelves when he craned his neck, and her voice was muffled when she said, “You should have a midlife crisis and run away with me.”

She winked at him over her shoulder, and Arthur grinned.

“I can’t run anywhere without a babysitter,” he said. He caught a glimpse of her frown, in profile, when she straightened, and prompted, “You know, for that kid I take care of?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Your charity case.”

“Merlin isn’t a charity case,” Arthur told her, frowning. “I didn’t adopt him for the publicity.”

Technically, Merlin wasn’t even adopted yet – Arthur was still officially classed as a foster parent – but much as he liked spending time with her, Arthur suspected the details of that might have gone over Vivian’s beautifully styled head.

And beautiful it was, he thought, when she leaned against the back of the couch to hand him a beer. “Of course you didn’t,” she said, bending down to kiss him before he had the chance to press the issue. “You’re much too noble to do something like that.”

“I’m a knight in shining armour,” Arthur said, wry, and pulled her down on top of him.

In March, Merlin laid a picture of an Easter egg hunt – his art teacher liked to get started early, apparently – down on the kitchen table and said, “You’re seeing someone.”

Arthur froze, a half-cracked egg still in his hands. “I am,” he said slowly.

Merlin looked him over. “But not Gwen.”

Arthur shook his head. “No. Not Gwen.”

“Right,” Merlin said, turning away, but not before Arthur could see his face crumple.

Cursing, he put his head down in the sink and rushed after Merlin before the kid could get away. Most of his fingers were sticky with raw egg, omelette be damned, but he managed to snag the collar of Merlin’s shirt with his pinkie. “Hey, no, stay here for a minute.”

“Why?” Merlin snapped at him. His words were at direct odds with the way he leaned into Arthur obligingly, pressing his forehead into Arthur’s side. “You’re just gonna tell me that you don’t know any Gwens and I’m crazy and then she’ll be turned into a deer and you’ll almost shoot her and then break up with Mithian anyway.”

Arthur sighed into the dark hair. “Where you get these ideas, Merlin, I’ll never know.”

“You never do,” Merlin mumbled back.

There was a playground in the park down the street from their house that Arthur usually avoided like the plague, mostly because the last thing he needed was to give Merlin even more opportunities to hurt himself. But sometimes on their walk back from the Co-op, they stopped for a couple of minutes, anyway, letting Merlin run around like an idiot and Arthur loiter with their shopping. Saturday morning was a lot sunnier than Arthur had anticipated, though, and he was seriously debating cracking open a juice bottle and drinking it straight, bacteria be damned, when his phone rang. Merlin wasn’t far, and Arthur passed him the pack to hold while he fumbled it out of his pocket. “Hello, Vivian,” he said.

“Hello you,” she purred, while Merlin rolled his eyes.

When Arthur gestured, he passed the juice back, but he didn’t react to Arthur’s unsubtle hand movements telling him to beat it.

Arthur turned away. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Well, I was wondering…” She was using her seductive voice, that he usually quite liked but was a little awkward hearing in front of his kid. The flirty giggle didn’t help. “I know you like your wines, so how would you feel about going to a wine tasting?”

“Sounds good, yeah.” Arthur gave Merlin a pointed look.

The boy didn’t move.

“Wonderful,” she said. “Can you be here in thirty minutes?”

“Wait, right now?” Arthur said. He was getting old, he decided. He would probably have jumped at the chance two years ago. Having a kid was turning him into a boring old geezer with no social life. “Vivian, right now is not going to work.”

“Oh, good Lord,” Merlin muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose with two fingers. All he needed was a cane, Arthur mused, and he’d be chasing his classmates off of Arthur’s front lawn.

“Go play on the swings,” he told the kid, giving his shoulder a light shove.

Merlin frowned at him. “But I don’t like the swings.”

“I don’t care.” Arthur pushed him again. “Go away. Shoo.”

Vivian was not pleased about having to repeat herself once the boy had trotted off, but she did when he asked. “What’s wrong with right now?” she asked. “It’s always on Saturday morning.”

“I – have company?” Arthur said blankly.

“Oh.” Vivian scoffed. “So bring them. The more the merrier. Your mates are more than welcome.” She giggled a little. “Especially if they’re as handsome as you.”

And that, that right there – that was why Arthur needed somebody intelligent, and not some flirty alcoholic chit. He held back the disbelieving noises he was tempted to make and said, with as steady a voice as he could manage, “I’m certainly not taking my kid boozing with me. I dare say his caseworker would have a thing or two to say about that.”

“Oh,” Vivian said.

Arthur waited for a moment. When nothing more was forthcoming, he echoed, “’Oh?’”

“I thought you had a babysitter, that’s all.”

Arthur withdrew the phone from his ear and frowned at it. “I do,” he said slowly. “For when I’m at work. On weekends, I spend time with my kid.”

Vivian huffed; just loud enough for him to hear it, but too quietly for him to call her on it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Merlin stumble over nothing and face plant onto the fancy rubber surfacing. He tried to wave Arthur off, but Arthur could already see he’d shredded his knee to pieces, and crooked a beckoning finger.

He sighed explosively. “You know,” he said, watching Merlin limp back towards him, “Vivian, I don’t think this is going to work out.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Fine,” she said then, snippily.

Arthur hesitated, dumb-funded that it had been so easy, so painless. He let the silence drag on for far longer than was polite, and it took him even longer to realize she’d hung up on him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, Merlin was staring up at him.

Arthur considered him for a moment, phone still in his hand. “Can you still walk? Then let’s head home.”

They limped quietly all the way to the off-license; when they got to the pub on the corner, Merlin scoffed.

From the corner of his eye, Arthur could see the smirk spreading over the boy’s face. “Do _not_ ,” he said, with a finger lifted in warning, “say ‘I told you so.’”

“Fine.” Merlin walked in silence for a couple of meters. “I did, though.”

“Merlin,” Arthur warned.

Merlin threw his hands into the air. “I _did_. I told you she was a twat and it wouldn’t work out, and lo and behold, I was right. I might say something else if you manage to find someone with a brain for a change.”

“Stop it,” Arthur said. “You’re nine. You’re not old enough to be giving me dating advice.”

Merlin raised his eyebrows. “I don’t see why not. Clearly, age hasn’t improved _your_ decision making capabilities any.”

For a moment, Arthur was honestly, seriously speechless. Then he let out a bark of disbelieving laughter and scooped up the boy before he had the chance to back away more than a couple of steps. “You little brat,” he whooped. “You just wait a couple of years, and I will laugh at every spotty, braces-sporting individual you drag through my door. We’ll see how well your sharp tongue treats you then.”

“Ar _thur_ ,” the boy protested, wriggling when Arthur slung him over his shoulder. “At least they won’t be as airheaded as your latest conquest. Hey, no! No tickling!”

Arthur wasn’t really paying attention to the telly. He’d turned on the news as usual, but he was exhausted from negotiating with Helios’ secretary all day – Helios had yet to actually show any personal interest in Arthur’s work, and Arthur suspected he might just about have a nervous collapse if the man ever did – and new statistics on homicide rates around the world could only vaguely hold his interest, no matter that the anchor was young and pretty.

Merlin came in just when the atrociously rising homicide rates in South America were revealed, standing near Arthur’s feet and watching the woman’s solemn explanations with wide eyes. Finally, when the news had moved on to the – ridiculously high – murder rates in El Salvador, he said, very quietly, “That’s terrible.”

Arthur laid his arm across his eyes. Would he be a terrible parent if he asked Merlin to bring him a beer? “Uh-huh,” he mumbled.

He bolted upright when Merlin slapped his stomach a moment later – not very hard, but determined enough to sting. “What was that for?”

Merlin pointed an angry finger at the television. “Why aren’t you paying attention to that?” he demanded. “Almost ten people murdered every day! Doesn’t that _bother_ you?”

Arthur blinked a couple of times. “Of course it bothers me, Merlin,” he said, “but what are you expecting me to do about it?”

“I can’t believe you,” the kid seethed.

Arthur lifted exasperated hands. “What exactly is your problem? Please, Merlin. I’m at a loss.”

Merlin glared at him. “I just don’t understand how you can just not care.” He flung a hand towards the window. “Why won’t you act? There are people _dying_ out there.”

“We’re at peace, Merlin, for Christ’s sake.” Arthur pinched his eyes shut against the headache building at his temples. “Nobody’s dying in the streets.”

“Not _here_ , they’re not.” The boy shook his head, and it was the glimmer of disappointment Arthur saw in his eyes that really got to him. “But half the world is at war, and you don’t even want to do anything about it.”

Arthur threw up his hands. " _What_ exactly is with your constant desire to see me dead?"

He'd hoped putting it so crudely would shock the kid into silence, and that bit succeeded brilliantly. Unfortunately, Arthur had apparently overshot the mark a little, because a moment later the boy turned white, and then green, and then he swallowed in a gulping way that had Arthur instantly on edge.

"Please don't throw up on me," he said.

Merlin swallowed again, and then once more. He nodded. "I'm okay," he said in a tiny voice.

Still, Arthur didn't come closer until the kid had regained a more natural skin colour. Finally, when he raised his eyebrows, Merlin nodded. He looked rattled, still, but no longer likely to be sick all over Arthur's shoes, so Arthur deemed it safe for now.

He settled back down on the couch and patted the firm cushion. "Come here for a moment," he said.

Merlin gave him a doubtful look. He shuffled closer and sat down at the very edge, eyeing Arthur like he might keel over dead any moment.

"Listen," Arthur said.

Merlin dropped his gaze but nodded.

Arthur figured that was as good as it was going to get. "Merlin, as flattering as it is that you think of me as this mythical hero capable of taking down anything and anyone, I can't just march off into war, alright? Wars don't help anyone, and they don't save anyone, and I'm a mortal man and if I get shot, I'm going to die."

He paused, but the boy didn't react. He kept his eyes turned away and his shoulders hunched and his mouth firmly shut. 

Children. God, Arthur had no idea what had possessed him to take on raising one on his own.

With two fingers, he reached underneath the boy's chin, turning Merlin's miserable face towards his own. "And even if I _did_ feel some deep emotional desire to get gunned down in some foreign country, little wizard, I still have you to worry about. So no, I am not going to start fighting for peace and justice in El Salvador, not now and not ever."

If he was being honest, Arthur would have expected some sort of positive reaction to that. Maybe not a hug and a tearfully exclaimed "Daddy!" because that really wasn't Merlin's style, but maybe a smile or so. Something.

Instead, Merlin pulled away from his touch. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and raised his chin defiantly. “You used to hold yourself to a higher standard than that,” he said.

He stomped away before Arthur could figure out what to say to that. It was amazing how loud little socked feet could be on carpeted stairs.

“Merlin,” Arthur said.

“You used to be a _hero_ ,” the kid yelled down the stairs, right before his bedroom door slammed.

Arthur rolled his eyes at the ceiling, like that would make him feel any less gutted. The news anchor started talking about overfishing in the Pacific, and Arthur flopped onto his side and turned the television off.

Doctor duLac seemed a little surprised when Arthur asked for a Merlin-free appointment, but not when Arthur finally gathered up his courage and resolve and actually asked what was on his mind. If anything, he seemed a little disappointed, but Arthur refused to give in to the rush of guilt. Merlin was his responsibility. He had to know.

“I’ll be frank with you, Mr. Pendragon,” Doctor duLac said. He pushed Merlin’s file aside and laced his fingers together. “There are some mental disorders that Merlin is displaying symptoms of – that much is true.” At Arthur’s questioning look, he opened a desk drawer and withdrew a couple of pamphlets that he handed over, the topmost one reading _Schizophrenia and your child_ , with a smiling golden-haired kid on the front.

Arthur put them aside, feeling a little sick.

“Mr. Pendragon.” The doctor waited until Arthur looked at him. “Yes, there are some symptoms. However, I cannot stress enough how mild and few those symptoms are. Most of them don’t even fit the same illness. They’re scattered all over the scale, and trying to make them all match one illness or another would be an exercise in creativity I don’t think even Merlin could complete. So unless he’s developed some as of yet unstudied developmental disorder-“ which, Arthur thought morosely, wasn’t all that unlikely “- he is, as unwilling as you appear to be to believe me, actually fine.”

Arthur didn’t even have to say anything.

duLac sighed. “I know you’re worried, Mr. Pendragon. I do. Anyone in your position would be. But Merlin is a generally healthy little boy, and a little bit of living out his fantasies isn’t going to change that. I know it’s very hard to see him struggling, but telling the difference between real and imagined is something Merlin is going to have to figure out for himself.”

Arthur rubbed his face. "Aren't there... Pills? Something I can give him to fix that?"

Doctor duLac gave him a fierce look. "Oh, you certainly could. But you're going to have to find some other doctor to prescribe those pills, Mr. Pendragon, because I won't."

Arthur groaned. He pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “But if they help him-“

“They won’t.” The interruption was sharp and without hesitation, and Arthur reluctantly met the man’s eyes.

He almost wished he hadn’t. He hadn’t been certain the man actually felt emotions beyond ‘neutral’ and ‘delighted,’ but that was definitely anger he could see on the man’s face now.

"Mr. Pendragon, you have to be very, very careful. Alright? Yes, Merlin should be in therapy to give him the tools he needs to cope with this world we live in - a world that's often scary and quite confusing, even for adults, who understand how it works and have had time to get used to it. Children like Merlin, who have been yanked from their naive, straightforward world and thrust into a reality that requires them to think and react with a maturity far beyond their years - they don't have it easy, and they need all the support they can get.

"So yes, if this violent streak of Merlin's persists or gets worse, medication is an option. But it should really be a last resort. I urge you not to force it on him as long as there are other avenues to be explored, and even then, it _must_ be in Merlin’s interest, and Merlin’s interest alone. You cannot threaten him with it or lord it over him whenever he does something you don't like.”

“I wouldn’t,” Arthur snapped. A niggling thread of doubt hinted that he might have, but he brushed it aside. Now that the doctor had pointed it out, he absolutely refused to go there, if only to prove him wrong.

“I want what’s best for Merlin,” he said instead. “As I’m sure you do, as well. So help me figure out a way to help him, will you? If there is medication that would ease things for him, don’t hold it back just because you disagree with the principle. I mean, I know you’re more of an – alternative guy.”

duLac rolled his eyes, annoyed. "If Merlin had a mental illness severe enough to warrant medication, and I do see children where I believe that their lives are infinitely improved by it, then I would say so. I would, Mr. Pendragon, there's no need to look so sceptical. But Merlin isn't like that. He's an intelligent boy with a good grasp on reality and an understanding of how the world works that goes well beyond his years. The kind of medication we’re talking about here is hard on any mind, and a child’s, especially. It influences the mind in ways some children benefit from, but Merlin, bright and well-adjusted as he is, will not.

“I'm sure you agree that he manages quite well in most situations, and it's only when he feels overwhelmed by something – such as meeting a love interest of yours, for instance; someone who he perceives to be a threat to his security and livelihood - it's only then that his fantasy world takes over. It's a coping mechanism, Mr. Pendragon, nothing more.”

He paused, there, and took a deep breath. Arthur could actually see him pull himself together, and when he leaned forward to fix Arthur with a look, he seemed nothing but earnest.

“Mr. Pendragon, I know you’re familiar with the foster system, and what exposure to that kind of uncertainty, trauma and stress can do to a child. In the world we live in, children are essentially helpless. They are entirely dependent on the adults in their lives and the goodwill of those adults to feed them, clothe them, and not hurt them. Most children don't realize the danger in that until they are old enough to cope for themselves if need be, but for better or for worse, Merlin has already understood that. It's hard for him to trust strangers because he knows how helpless he really is, and I don't think you fully appreciate how much he's going against everything logical for him to open up to you the way he does.

“Right now, Merlin's brain is his only weapon. He knows that. He trusts in you to provide for him, and not to take advantage of his physical dependence. So if you give him the idea that something is wrong with him, or that he cannot come to you with certain things without having to fear the consequences, then you're going to lose him. He's going to start doubting himself, at best. Lose all faith in himself and his own judgment, become confused, grow resentful of his own mind, and embark on a road of self-destructive behaviour and mental breakdowns, and end up an inpatient before he turns twenty."

duLac offered up his other hand as a counterpoint. "Another possible outcome is that when faced with the decision of believing in himself or believing in what you're telling him, he's going to start doubting _you_. Then he's going to start lying to you. He's going to fall prey to predators, bad influences, very certainly drugs. He's going to lie, cheat, steal, run away and quite possibly end up in jail because if he comes to you with his difficulties and you respond by taking away his ability to think, he'll learn that asking for help is a mistake, and he's certainly never going to trust you again."

Arthur held up his hands, chastened in the face of duLac's anger. "Alright," he said. "Alright. No pills unless he gets worse. I got it."

duLac smiled at him; halfway in pleasure and halfway in, Arthur suspected, apology. He held up a finger and rummaged around in his desk drawers for a while before re-emerging with a pleased smile and a business card.

Arthur reached across the table to take it. “What’s this?”

“It’s someone for _you_ to talk to.” duLac smiled at him. “What you’re doing isn’t easy, Mr. Pendragon. A professional can provide coping strategies and game plans as well as lend an unbiased ear. I strongly advise you at least consider it.”

Morosely, Arthur stared down at the card. Great. Somehow, amidst all his crazy, Merlin had managed to manoeuvre _Arthur_ into needing a shrink, too.

Merlin found the pamphlets two days later. Arthur had more or less forgotten about them, still rattled by duLac’s stern talking-to, and only stared for a moment when Merlin brandished them under his nose.

Freya slipped quietly out the door.

“They don’t mean anything,” Arthur said. He took off his coat and shoes and set his briefcase down. He wasn’t looking forward to a fight, but the entire house seemed charged with it.

“I think it’s ironic-” Merlin’s voice shook, and he swallowed. “Ironic, that you would rather declare me insane than listen to what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Nobody’s declared anything,” Arthur said, without any hope of it doing much good. “And I _would_ listen, if you could just stop with the histrionics and tell me what you want me to do.”

“I do!” The kid tossed the pamphlets to the floor which, them being pamphlets, only worked so well. “I tell you all the time, and all you ever offer is excuses.”

Arthur pulled his tie off with jerky movements. He wanted dinner and the weekend, not this. “What you tell me to do,” he said, “is play Superman. Single-handedly lower the crime rate in South America. Stop all conflict in the Middle East. Does that sound about right?”

“Yes!”

Arthur, who hadn’t been expecting that, frowned.

Merlin stomped his feet. “You’re supposed to be out there, doing _something_. You're supposed to save everybody! Not sit around on your arse, waiting for retirement."

"I'm not invincible, Merlin," Arthur said, voice growing sharper. "As lovely as it is that you've built me up into some sort of superhero in your head, you need to stop. Do you understand? I'm not some reborn legend or whatever you seem to think, and even if I had any desire whatsoever to go out slaying dragons, I don't think there are any left for me to fight."

Merlin’s breath hitched. Arthur looked over sharply, but of course, the boy’s eyes were dry. Merlin rarely cried. Arthur was glad for it usually, perfectly content not to have little kid blubber on his clothes most days, but sometimes he couldn't help but think that it might make things easier. Merlin would bawl, Arthur would pat his back and offer him a handkerchief, and it would be uncomfortable but at least Arthur would know what to _do_.

Instead, Merlin was the very image of stoic, the poster boy of the quietly devastated, and Arthur sighed.

"Can't you throw me a bone, here?" he said quietly. "I want to be all you want me to be, I really do, but somehow I don't think a dead soldier on the battlefield is really it."

The boy looked away.

Sensing an in, Arthur came a little closer. “Come on,” he said. “I can’t be what you expect me to be if you never tell me what that expectation _is_.”

Merlin wrapped his arms around himself. Voice small, he said, “I just want you to fulfil your destiny. You know, come back when Albion’s need is greatest, and so on. Not watch TV and take advantage of the poor.”

Oh, good Lord. Arthur ran his hand through his hair. “Merlin, what is it that you think I do?”

The boy blinked rapidly. “You’re a suit,” he offered hesitantly.

“Pro-bono lawyers wear suits,” Arthur said. He didn’t know whether to roll his eyes or cry.

“A corporate suit,” came the elaboration. “You make a lot of money.”

Well, it was true. And it wasn’t. “I’m an environmental scientist,” Arthur said, leaning down so they were almost nose to nose. “I fight global warming. I'm trying to save billions of people, species and the entire environment besides. Is that noble enough for you?"

“Oh,” Merlin said, very quietly.

With a sigh, Arthur scooped the boy up into his arms. “You,” he said, and broke off.

Merlin’s arms settled around his neck. He was staring at Arthur like he’d never seen him before.

Feeling vaguely cynical, Arthur gave him a squeeze. “Are we done for now?” he said. “Can I have dinner? Maybe change?”

“Yes, sire,” Merlin said, and dug his chin into Arthur’s shoulder.

On Saturday morning, when they weren’t scheduled for brunch with Morgana, Arthur slipped into Merlin’s room and hunched down next to the bed, folding his arms on the mattress and resting his chin on his hands.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, when Merlin blinked sleepily at him. “Because I feel like there are some things here we really should have talked about by now, and that includes what I do for a living.”

The kid nodded slowly.

Arthur slapped his thigh through the blanket. “Get up, then,” he said. “Let’s clear up some mysteries.”

Merlin was quiet in the elevator, clinging to Arthur’s hand. He hadn’t protested putting on a nice shirt, or their walk through Canary Wharf’s skyscrapers, or even spending an hour on the tube followed by an elevator ride that felt even longer. Besides some security, the building was deserted, and Merlin allowed Arthur to lead him through the maze of empty cubicles without a word.

“This is my office,” Arthur said, unlocking the door. It wasn’t much different from those of his colleagues – desk, file cabinets, humongous computer. Opposite Arthur’s desk was a large map of the UK that Merlin stopped in front of, taking in the many colourful markers Arthur had pinned all over it.

Arthur sat down in his chair and watched him stare while his computer booted up. After a while, Merlin’s attention wavered, and he wandered over to Arthur’s side.

“That’s us,” Arthur said, pointing at the large green dot on the map, right in the middle of London. We’re a green agency – that means we’re committed to improving environmental protection, through whatever means we have. Renewable energy is a big thing at the moment. Conservation, preserving plant and animal life, those are all things we do. Where possible, we collaborate with other companies, offering them cheaper energy sources, better public opinion and less environmentally damaging alternatives to their current ways of doing things in return for them agreeing to follow our guidelines and standards.”

He smiled when Merlin did, pulling the kid close. “We have some pretty big companies under our belt by now. I can't tell you who we're currently negotiating with, though."

The boy pointed at the Hyperion letterhead on one of the documents on the desk, and Arthur ran his knuckles over the kid's skull.

"Quiet," he said. "This company - that I cannot tell you the name of - has a large number of sub companies in just about every market: cars, construction, airplanes, edibles; they all have warehouses, production, transport. The collaboration we’re working towards would mean not just the umbrella corporation, but every single sub company would have to adhere to our standards. And if we can manage that, my dear little wizard - things will be very different then."

Merlin was quiet now, gazing at Arthur with rapt attention.

Arthur smiled at him, feeling a familiar jolt of excitement. If they could just make this one thing happen... "Carbon emissions would drop by several percent - not just here, but worldwide. We could meet the 20-20-20 targets not just _by_ their deadline, but several years before."

He looked down at the kid. "Do you understand what a big deal that is?"

Merlin nodded slowly.

Arthur held out a hand, and Merlin took it.

"I know it's not as glamorous as marching into battle with a sword and armour, but perhaps it's a worthy cause nonetheless?"

Merlin was quiet after that, so Arthur eventually stopped explaining and left him in peace, clicked half-heartedly through his email while the kid trailed his finger over the map on the wall.

After a while, Merlin came over and leaned his forehead against Arthur's shoulder. Arthur figured that was as much of an apology as he was going to get. He ran his fingers through the kid's hair and said, "Wanna see if there's any candy in the kitchen?"

Merlin was apparently okay with that, abandoning Arthur's side and office to bounce impatiently around the corridor. Arthur trailed after him with a grin on his face, one Merlin more than matched him when they discovered not only candy but an entire stash of sodas in one of the cupboards. While the kid ran wild with the chocolate, Arthur, leaning back against the doorjamb, noticed light coming from Aislinn’s office.

He gestured Merlin to follow him, which the kid took as an invitation to some sort of spy game, making exaggerated movements and bursting through the open doorway into Aislinn’s office with a loud “A-ha!”

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose and followed him.

The boy stood, unrepentant, in front of Aislinn’s desk, watching Arthur’s colleague with the same suspicious regard she seemed to have for him.

“She looks like she’s supposed to be here,” Merlin announced.

No wonder parents were so embarrassing as you got older. By the time any child reached teenage-hood, their parents’ ability to feel shame had no doubt been burned out of them entirely.

Arthur curled his lips into a wry smile and said, “Merlin, this is Aislinn. This is her office.”

Aislinn blinked at her computer screen.

“I need the loo,” Merlin announced, graceful as ever.

“Down the hallway to the left,” Arthur told him, half-yelling the last part when the kid slipped out the open door without waiting for him to finish.

His eyes settled back on Aislinn automatically.

“Cute kid?” she offered uncertainly.

“Sure,” Arthur said. That was one way of putting it. “What are you doing here? It’s the weekend.”

She bit her lip for a moment before whatever internal battle she was waging turned in Arthur’s favour. Leaning forward, she said, voice low, “Helios is here. He wanted to see the place before he committed to a meeting. Alice asked me to compile some data.”

“Oh,” Arthur said. He wasn’t sure how he felt about not being told about that. Clearly, the visit was supposed to be low-key, but considering it was mostly his project now, shouldn’t Alice have let him know?

“Hey, since you’re here – Essetir just sent this over.”

Arthur offered her a wan smile and reached for the print-out she handed him. He took it over to the window to read, mind whirring. Alice had her reasons for letting him know, to be sure, and she’d apparently not told anyone but Aislinn. That was fine.

He read the email – a proposal for a meeting, nothing that couldn’t wait until Monday, folded it in two and tapped it against the windowsill a few times before setting it down.

The real issue was what to do now. What Arthur _wanted_ to do was go find them. But Alice was not expecting him to be here, and not with his current company. And neither was Helios, a man it would not do to get on the bad side of. Merlin being Merlin, the best course of action would no doubt be to avoid the man entirely, so of course that was when a deep, unfamiliar voice drifted in from the hallway, saying, “And who is this young man?”

Arthur wrenched the door open all the way, drawing the attention of the small group down the hall – Helios of course, Alice, Alice’s second-in-command Osgar, and Merlin, whose _help please!_ expression didn’t really make Arthur feel any better.

He smoothed his expression over and forced himself to go slow. With steady strides, he passed between the cubicles, coming to a stop just slightly in front of the kid. “This is Merlin,” he said. “He’s with me.”

He inclined his head at Alice and Osgar before he offered Helios a professional smile.

“Arthur, this is Mr. Helios,” Alice jumped in smoothly. “He expressed an interest in seeing the company himself, hence the tour.”

“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” Arthur said, offering his hand for a bone-crushing shake. He settled the hand he wasn’t surreptitiously stretching against the pain on Merlin’s shoulder. “It seems you’ve already met my son.”

Helios crossed his arms, tapped his finger against his chin while he peered at Merlin. The kid edged closer to Arthur’s side but at least refrained from burying his head in Arthur’s shirt.

“I suppose it’s in the eyes,” he said, finally, uncrossing his arms and shooting Arthur a quick smile.

“I’m adopted,” Merlin piped up.

Arthur was too professional to groan, although he truly wanted to. He cut a quick glance at Alice instead, who met his eyes briefly before settling them back on her guest, unreadable.

Helios, thank God, just laughed. “Then you must tell everybody it’s the eyes,” he said. “And watch them fall all over each other assuring you and each other how obvious it is.”

Merlin grinned, then; that charming, boyish grin that he usually reserved for particularly impish occasions. And apparently for meeting corporate giants whose cooperation was vital to everything Arthur was trying to achieve. Arthur could practically see Helios’ already willing-to-be-charmed heart melt.

“That’s a lovely young gentleman you’re raising, Arthur,” he said.

Arthur cleared his throat. “I like to think so,” he said, and there was some sort of understanding that passed between them – mutual respect, the joys and woes of parenthood, seeing the other in a new light. To Helios, Arthur was no longer a business venture – he was someone the man had something in common with.

“I look forward to our negotiations,” Helios told him.

Arthur could feel Alice’s eyes on him, her attention suddenly sharp and focused. He didn’t dare look over at her, keeping his gaze on Helios instead.

“You too, sir.” Somehow, his voice came out clear and strong. He nodded once to Alice as he reached for Merlin’s hand, and on their way to the elevator, he vowed to buy Merlin an ice-cream cone as big as his head.

Arthur should have realized something was up when he let himself and Merlin in Morgana’s front door on Saturday morning and instead of the smell of fresh waffles or strawberry soufflé or whatever she’d thought up that week, they were greeted by silence.

As it was, however, he wrestled Merlin out of his coat and toed off his shoes and, when Morgana still hadn’t come to greet them, called for her. “I thought we were past playing hide and seek at this point,” he added, also to no avail.

Merlin rolled his eyes in his direction. He dumped his shoes in a pile at Arthur’s feet and wandered out into the living room, Arthur catching up with him after only a moment.

“Don’t think I didn’t see that,” he warned, and then caught sight of Morgana, sitting daintily on one of her gigantic couches, poised and her hair done elegantly and her face a red, swollen mess. She’d half-shredded a tissue between her fingers. It took Arthur a moment to realize she was crying. Bawling, perhaps, although his mind shied away from associating anything so classless with his elegant older sister.

“Morgana!” he said. “What’s going on?”

He didn’t realize until a moment afterwards that he’d reached for Merlin automatically, ready to pull the boy behind him should there turn out to be some unknown threat.

There didn’t seem to be anything wrong, though, beyond the obvious; she shook her head, hiding her face behind her hands, and made a vague attempt at speech that got lost in hiccups and high-pitched whines. Morgana, bless her heart, was not a particularly graceful crier.

It took her a moment to collect herself enough that she could get the words out without stuttering. “I am no longer spoken for,” she said, poised and dignified, and then dissolved into a fresh round of tears.

Arthur stared at her. He hadn’t seen Val around a whole lot, but she hadn’t mentioned anybody else, so apparently he’d been a fairly big part of her life for a good year or so. It was funny, that that could seem like such a long time with Sophia and barely felt like the blink of an eye when it was someone else.

“Well,” Arthur said slowly, when Merlin shot him an expectant look. “You’re probably well shot of him. Although how you ever expected to have a stable and fulfilled relationship with a guy called Valentius is beyond me. Hey!” He glared at Merlin and rubbed his stinging side.

Morgana took a deep breath and swiped the tissue under her eyes with dainty fingers. “No matter,” she said. She wiped away a few more tears. “Obviously, I was far too good for him. It never could have worked out in the long run.”

“That’s the spirit,” Arthur said.

Merlin shot him a less-than-impressed look, and Arthur stared back at him. He was trying, wasn’t he?

His sister drew in another shuddering breath. “I’ll be fine. I’m fine.”

Arthur couldn’t tell who was more shocked – him or Morgana – when Merlin suddenly climbed onto the couch and pressed himself into his sister’s side. “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “He’s a twat, and you’re better off without him.”

Arthur wouldn’t have believed her capable at the moment, but Morgana did manage to produce a tiny smile. She raised her eyebrows in passing at Arthur before she said, “Thank you, Merlin, that’s very kind of you to say.”

“I mean it, though,” the boy insisted stubbornly. He edged more firmly into Morgana’s side. “You deserve better than him, and you will find somebody. Somebody great.”

“Oh yes?” Morgana managed a watery smile.

Arthur, who knew how much she would despise being seen teary-eyed now that she had gotten herself mostly back under control, diverted Merlin’s attention by reaching out and tickling the boy’s stomach. “Don’t tell me you’ve seen Morgana’s dream guy in those visions of yours, too.”

Scowling, Merlin batted his hands away. “I don’t have _visions_ ,” he said, with a disgust that was fairly hilarious considering he could talk entirely seriously about reincarnations and past lives. “And no, I haven’t.” He looked up to give Morgana an earnest look. “I just know you’re going to find somebody amazing. Someone who actually deserves to be with you.”

Morgana, to Arthur’s surprise and worry, actually choked up again at that. “Thank you, Merlin” she repeated, voice thick.

Merlin looked down at his lap. “You’re welcome,” he said quietly, and left it at that.

“You ready?” Arthur called into the kitchen. Movie night was all set up – popcorn, drinks, chocolate, DVD at the ready, so all that was left was to collect Merlin from the dark recesses of the house and collapse on the sofa.

“I’m coming,” Merlin griped. He appeared a moment later, wiping at his mouth – Arthur didn’t want to know – and shuffled around the couch. “Ready, Maestro.”

“Excellent,” Arthur said.

He tried to toss the remote onto the coffee table. Instead of clattering to a stop on the glass, though, it hit the bowl of popcorn, knocking it off the edge and scattering little kernels all over the carpet. Arthur didn’t realize Merlin had moved until the boy made a frustrated noise, relaxed his outstretched fingers and covered his face with his hands.

Arthur frowned. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” the boy said, muffled.

“It is not nothing,” Arthur said, and had to lean out of the way of Merlin’s frustrated, flailing hands.

“I don’t know what it is!” he said. “I try and I try and it just doesn’t _work_.”

“What doesn’t?” Arthur discreetly caught his hands before they could clip him after all.

“The _magic_ ,” Merlin said, with enough exasperation to make Arthur feel stupid despite what he’d just heard.

“Are we back to this, then?” he asked, mood quickly tipping over into annoyance.

Merlin rolled his eyes. “I guess we are.” He pulled his hands free but didn’t protest when Arthur reached for his waist instead. “I can’t help believing it, and you can’t help being a prat who doesn’t.”

Arthur frowned again. “Is being from this century really so bad?” He used his grip on Merlin’s belly to pull him close. “Do you _have_ to be some ancient wizard?”

“Maybe I’m not,” Merlin said quietly. “Maybe I’m just crazy.”

“You’re not crazy,” Arthur said. He tried a half-hearted hug but Merlin was having none of that, pushing violently out of his arms.

“What the hell,” he protested. “You keep telling me I’m insane and I make things up and I can’t tell reality from fantasy, and then when I finally start to believe me, you try the other tack? Come _on_.”

“I don’t think you’re _insane_ ,” Arthur protested, to no avail.

“You want to put me on drugs,” Merlin snarled at him. Arthur didn’t think he’d ever seen the boy so mad, eyes blazing and voice cold and furious. “You want to fry my brain with chemicals, and you don’t think I’m ‘insane?’” He even had the little hand gestures to go with it. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Merlin!”

For a moment, the boy looked actually sorry, before his jaw set and his eyes hardened. “I mean it,” he said. “If you’re going to do – _that_ , I’m calling Mithian and telling her I want to go back to Battersea.”

Arthur stared at him.

Merlin’s face softened a little bit. “Sorry,” he said. “But I’m serious. You can’t do that to me.” He hesitated for a moment and, when Arthur still didn’t say anything, added, fidgeting, “I’m going to go upstairs.”

And he left.

Arthur blinked a couple of times. “Mother _fucker_ ,” he said.

He had a beer and watched most of the news without taking in a single word, and then he followed. Merlin wasn’t in his room. Frowning, Arthur poked around a bit, finally discovering the kid in Arthur’s own bed, on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling.

“Hey,” Arthur said.

Merlin waved him in, a lazy movement that the rest of his body had no part in.

Arthur shuffled around the bed and stared down at him for a while, that thin, small body; watching, perhaps, Merlin watch him.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur said after a while. “Things must be very confusing for you. I’m trying to help, but I suppose sometimes I just make it worse.”

This time, Merlin waved him off. “You’re scared of things you don’t understand, Arthur. You always have been.”

Arthur sat down at the edge of the bed. “I suppose so,” he said slowly.

Merlin gave him an ancient smile. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s normal. Most people are.”

Arthur didn’t know what to say to that, so he looked down at his hands and shrugged. He started when Merlin reached out and took one of them.

“I forgive you,” he said. “You don’t have to get all of it right, Arthur. Not all the time.”

“I should, though,” Arthur said, surprising himself with the vehemence of the words. “I’m the parent, here. I should know what I’m doing. At least most of the time.”

Merlin laughed quietly. Gently, he pressed dry lips to Arthur’s knuckles. “It’s okay,” he said. “You have to have _some_ flaws, or we wouldn’t know what to do with you.”

Arthur’s phone started going off like a rocket on the escalators out of Northwood Station, a bottle of Château Montrose for Morgana’s Friday-after-work-birthday-party tucked under his arm. He fumbled for his mobile with one hand and for his Oyster Card with the other, glancing at the screen with a sinking feeling. Apparently, the forty minutes since he left work had warranted fourteen missed calls, six voice-mails and five texts from – one, two, four different people, including his boss. For a moment, Arthur seriously wanted to drop the mobile into the nearest gully. Morgana had picked herself up admirably since her break-up, but she still had fragile moments, and Arthur had already _been_ at work for ten hours, and he wanted to hang onto his kid for a while and watch Morgana have overblown fun and relax for five fucking minutes.

With a sigh, Arthur found Sefa’s number and hit _send_.

“Arthurrr,” Morgana purred, clinging to the door for support when she pulled it open to admit him. “Arthur, I want you to meet my friend Guinevere. Gwen, this is my brother.”

“Hello,” Arthur said. “Morgana, I’ve got to go back to work. Something’s come up and I’ve got to go fix it. Code red and all that. I’ll make it up to you, alright? Brunch tomorrow.”

She nodded. She looked disappointed, but not unreasonably so. Her friend – Gwen – gave Morgana’s shoulder a squeeze and left with a promise of finding her some water, and she was really quite pretty, when Arthur let himself look.

Morgana smiled at him. Arthur suspected she wasn’t actually as drunk as she was acting, or at least on life, not alcohol.

“It’s alright,” she said. “I know your work is important.”

 _Not as important as you_ , he wanted to say, but he was unfortunately currently proving her wrong, so he just grimaced. “Do you need me to call Freya?” he asked. “Take him off your hands?”

She shook her head. “Mother’s sunk her claws in him so deep it’ll take until tomorrow at least to get them out.” She grinned at his grimace. “Besides, Freya just left. Leave him be, he’s taken care of.”

“Right.” Arthur leaned in to kiss her cheek. “I’m sorry. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Call me if you need him to sleep over,” she told him with an elegant twirl of her hands, before Arthur backed down the driveway and she disappeared back into the crowd of people – beautiful, refined, successful people who managed to reserve Friday nights for having fun, and not for going back to work.

Some Monday in June, Arthur got to work to find an email waiting for him, requesting him to come into his boss’ office first thing. Stuck halfway between annoyed and anxious, he took his sweet time shedding his coat and organizing his files for the day before he crossed the cubicle pit back to the elevators. It was an entirely innocuous thing for him to do, and still he thought he felt the stares following him, heard the whispers start up behind his back.

Predictably, he was already in a bad mood when he made it up to Alice’s office.

“Let me guess,” he said, when she waved him towards a chair. “My morals are in question once again.”

“That does seem to be a common theme recently,” she said. Her tone was vaguely regretful, and that made Arthur feel a little better.

He leaned back into the cushioned seat with a sigh. “What is it this time, then?”

“Well, you’re in the papers again,” she said. “Page 19 this time. And there are some new rumours floating around. Apparently word has got out that we have begun negotiating our cooperation with Hyperion since Helios’ visit here, and that his encounter with you and your boy most likely had something to do with it.”

Arthur’s mouth tightened. “Perhaps it is Osgar and Aislinn whose ethics you ought to question, then,” he said. “I’m hardly spreading disparaging rumours about myself.”

Alice shook her head tiredly. “There were a handful of people at work that day,” she said. “And that’s beside the point. The rumours are out there. I’d like to hear your stance on them.”

Something cold settled in the pit of Arthur’s stomach, crept up his spine. It wasn’t dread. It was angrier than that.

“The rumours are ridiculous,” he said. “I didn’t know Helios would be here that day, because you went to great lengths to make sure I didn’t. I came in to show Merlin where I work, because I _do_ have a son, and I _do_ have a life outside of this company, and running into Helios was not something I planned _or_ wanted. And perhaps these things all worked out in our favour, but I did not orchestrate them that way, and I certainly didn’t hear _you_ complaining when Helios finally showed his face in our boardroom.” He snapped off, there, to keep his temper in check. There was a good deal more he wanted to say on the matter, but she was still his boss, and in any case, she wasn’t really the person who needed to hear it.

Perhaps she could see it on his face regardless, because Alice held up a stalling hand. “Yes,” she said. “You are absolutely right about that, and I don’t wish to imply otherwise. What I’m concerned about right now are these – quite persistent – rumours that you took the boy on with precisely this outcome in mind.” She raised her arch eyebrows at him. “Is there anything you’d like to say about that?”

Arthur stared at her for a moment. He was angry, of course, but there was also an icy chill settling along his spine. If this thing kept growing the way it did, if people were going to start bothering Arthur about it, bothering _Merlin_ – Arthur wasn’t happy about what they were insinuating about him, but he could live with that. It wouldn’t be the first time somebody got the wrong idea of him. But he wouldn’t stand for it if they closed in on Merlin. _Nobody_ messed with his kid.

“I’d like to say,” he said slowly, when Alice gave him an expectant look, “that I find it absolutely despicable. It’s disgraceful that these people are honing in on a nine-year-old child. I adopted him out of the foster system, as they very well know, and he has it hard enough without these people preying on him. And I will _not_ let them hurt him, you can rest assured of that.”

Alice considered him for a moment, thoughtful, before she nodded. “I think you’re a good man, Arthur,” she said. “And that’s what I’ll tell them when they ask.”

Arthur nodded stiffly. “Thank you,” he said.

Alice’s voice stopped him on his way out the door. “And I do hope you’re planning to start bringing this young man to our company events. I’d love to meet him properly.”

Sports Day at St. Paul’s, for some unknown reason, was in April. Something about most classes going on trips in May, they’d explained in an email Arthur hadn’t really read. He didn’t care, besides the fact that it was the day after a conference in Edinburgh and he had no chance in hell of making it back in time for the start, not even if he took the train at 5:40 AM.

So instead, he walked out onto the sports field behind the school round about eleven, over-tired and hungry and carrying his suit bag over his arm. At least no one would try to steal it here, he figured, and laid it gently on an empty bench sitting lonely at the edge of the proceedings.

It didn’t take him terribly long to find his kid. He was at the other end of the field, in a mess of squabbling children setting up for a race. Too far away to get his attention, so Arthur, entirely out of place in his business clothes, set up shop near a group of adults apparently also intending to watch the race, and clapped politely when someone blew a whistle and the kids burst into action. Surrounded by overzealous parents, he watched the frantically scrambling children pump their legs towards the end of the course and grinned at Merlin finishing not first, but definitely somewhere towards the front of the pack.

Arthur didn’t cheer – Pendragons considered jeering along with a crowd to be quite undignified, and there was no way Merlin could have heard him over the screaming anyway – but he did grin at the result; felt the expression, wide and pleased, twist his face.

The aftermath of the race was about as coordinated as the event itself; a dozen schoolchildren yelling in delight and frustration, huddled around a pair of overwhelmed teachers. Arthur eased out of the group of spectators, intent on letting Merlin know he was there, and perhaps finding Morgana who’d promised to take him and hang around until Arthur got there.

It was a great sacrifice on her part, as she made certain Arthur knew.

He cast an absent look around, since an overdressed, good-looking woman in killer heels oughtn’t be too hard to find in his current environment. Unless, of course, she’d made off with somebody’s extremely handsome daddy, which would be hilarious in its own right, but that train of thought was derailed entirely when he caught sight of a vaguely familiar face in the crowd.

“Guinevere,” Arthur said, frowning.

She frowned right back at him. “Oh, Arthur. Hello.” In fact, she looked downright displeased to see him, and the thought certainly rankled.

“Something the matter?” he asked snidely.

She shook her head. “I guess I just… didn’t expect to see you here, I suppose.”

“My son’s here,” Arthur said, frowning. “What’s your excuse?”

It came out a lot harsher than he’d meant it to, he thought, but Gwen hadn’t seemed to properly register his tone. Instead she stared at him, frown deepening by the second.

“I didn’t know you had a son.”

Arthur stared back at her. “Gwen, I’m pretty sure you’ve _babysat_ my son.”

She frowned at him, eyes uncomprehending, leaving Arthur to cast about uncertainly for some other topic to make awkward small talk about. He was thankfully saved by Merlin barrelling into his legs from behind, laughing and hugging him around the waist with sweaty arms.

“I almost got third! Did you see? My teacher said I did really well.”

Arthur disentangled himself, catching Merlin by the shoulder to look him over. He was pink from exertion, and most likely the sun as well. Whoever was in charge of the kids had clearly neglected to provide sunscreen, as well.

Merlin bounced in his grip. “Did you see? Did you see?”

“I see you’ve been sunburnt,” Arthur said. He pressed his fingertips to the kid’s pink shoulders and frowned when it took several seconds for the white spots to fade.

Merlin batted his hand away. “Yes, but did you _see_?”

Arthur laughed. “Yes, I saw. Well done. You managed not to break your neck.”

“I got a certificate, too,” Merlin said. “Even though it just says I competed.” He wrinkled his nose. “I wanted them to write down that I almost got third, but they said they wouldn’t.”

“We can add it in later,” Arthur assured him. “And then we can put it up on the wall so everyone who comes to visit will know.”

Merlin, beaming, hugged him again. Then he yelped suddenly, perhaps related to his frantically waving teacher, and dashed off again, leaving Arthur once more alone with a silent Gwen.

“That’s him,” he said after a while, unnecessarily.

“ _Merlin_ is your son,” she said slowly.

“Well, yeah.” Arthur’s forehead pulled into creases. “Did Morgana not tell you he’s her nephew? It must have come up.”

Gwen pulled a face. “She did, I just didn’t know he was – you know, yours.”

Arthur was thoroughly bewildered, now, and more than a little pissed off. “Whose did you think? I know Morgana likes to confuse people, but Morgause hasn’t been to England in a decade. How many Pendragons do you think there are?”

Gwen held up her hands. “It’s not her fault, I just assumed – wrong, I suppose. I didn’t mean to offend you. I just didn’t think you were really… dad material.” She shook her head. “You know what, I’m just gonna go.”

Perhaps she was a little bit embarrassed, he thought, but she hid it too well for him to know for sure as she hurried off.

“Right,” Arthur said.

Gwen, it seemed, wasn’t the only one to have a terrible opinion of Arthur. He also had a chance to meet Merlin’s oft-mentioned friend Will, a ruddy-faced boy with a truly unfortunate bowl cut who seemed to hate Arthur on sight. He barely managed a ‘hello’ when Merlin dragged Arthur over to meet him and ran away first chance he got, and Arthur didn’t think he needed the approval of individuals who barely came up to his knees, but that kind of blatant disregard stung.

He scowled a bit to himself once Will had gone. He was a likeable guy for the most part, wasn’t he? He tried not to step on anyone’s toes unnecessarily, although sometimes he did, and he tried to be a good ~~dad~~ father-figure-ish kind of person, and to be a good person in general, and what had he ever done to either of those two? Honestly.

“He has the biggest crush on you,” Merlin blurted. When Arthur looked over at him in surprise, a fine flush spread over his cheekbones. He fingered the zipper of his jacket. “He does,” he said, “You’re pretty much his idol.”

Arthur scoffed. “He looked like he wanted to gnaw my hand off,” he said.

Merlin swallowed down a laugh. “That’s how he shows affection,” he said.

Arthur let his scepticism show, which did make Merlin laugh in the end.

“No, really, he does,” he insisted. “He refuses to even look at you whenever you’re around, you know? When he doesn’t like people, he says it to their faces.”

“I have _never_ seen Will before,” Arthur pointed out.

Merlin waved him off. “That’s because he always hides when you’re here.” He bumped his shoulder into Arthur’s hip. “You could probably feed him, that would help?”

Arthur raised amused eyebrows at the kid. “Are you sure it’s Will you want to feed?”

Merlin jostled his hip again. “Or me. That would be okay too.” He grinned up at Arthur. Most of his incisors had grown back in; he’d lost his canines instead. “All the other kids’ mums are taking them out for pizza.”

Arthur had the sneaking suspicion that it was probably one (or, at most, two) of the mothers bustling around that had made that promise, but he’d never been good at not indulging people when he had the means. – Not that he was going to make it easy for the kid.

So, trying not to grin too hard, Arthur heaved a heavy sigh. “Morgana offered to invite us for ice cream, but,” he cast a look around at the grazed-clean, sticky picnic tables around them, “I dare say you’ve had enough sugar for one day.”

“No!” Merlin’s gasp was more than a little horrified. “I’ve had barely any.”

“Barely any, huh?” Arthur snickered. Before Merlin could dodge away, he slung the boy over his shoulder, face-up, and poked at his distended belly. “I guess this is all muscles then, huh? There’s no ice cream in here at _all_.”

“Not enough,” Merlin protested. He shrieked with laughter when Arthur tickled his side, wriggling and writhing until Arthur set him back on his feet for fear of dropping him.

“Fine, we’ll go for ice-cream,” he said. “But if you explode, I’m not going to clean up the mess.”

It wasn’t until everything was wrapped up and over with, awards handed out and parents and teachers fawning over the others’ dedication and effort while their kids fell asleep on their feet, that Arthur realized going out for ice-cream with Morgana meant going out for ice-cream with Morgana and _Gwen_.

Gratifyingly, she hesitated when she saw him. Arthur thought she might have begged off, but Morgana was insistent, waxing poetic about that amazing gelato place that was so close, and how they simply _had_ to go. Gwen gave in. So did Arthur.

He did put his foot down when Morgana made noises about driving over. Gelato Mio was twenty minutes away on foot – Morgana was going to spend more time trying to find parking than it would take them to walk there.

Arthur’s estimation of Gwen went up a little when she vocally supported that plan.

“It’s so nice out tonight,” she said, and Morgana grumbled and subsided.

Still, she dragged her feet a little, sticking close to Arthur’s side while Gwen walked ahead with Merlin, chattering indistinctly but happily with the boy. Arthur, who wasn’t used to Merlin taking to strangers that easily, watched them with his brows furrowing. It took him a while to notice Morgana watching _him_. He feared a lecture of some sort, but instead she just smiled crookedly.

“How was your trip?” she asked, and he offered her a wry grin in return.

The ice cream place, when they finally got there, was fairly empty, and no one minded Merlin dithering between the options and changing his mind fifteen times. He went with a small sundae in the end, just like the rest of them, and carried it over to their table with a concentration Arthur rarely saw on him.

The first spoonful reminded Arthur that he had barely eaten all day. The cloying sweetness was almost too much on his empty stomach, but it was something, and they all ate in silence for a while. It really was very good.

At his side, Merlin smacked his lips with relish before digging in for another, even bigger spoonful. “We didn’t have this at Camelot.”

Arthur sighed. “Merlin, not right now, please.”

The boy subsided with a pout, giving in to the urge to kick at the table leg precisely once before Arthur’s stern look subdued him into quiet obedience.

Arthur ate almost half his ice cream before he realized that Gwen was glaring at him. He let his spoon sink. “What?”

She pursed her lips.

“No, seriously. What?”

Morgana clicked her tongue in reprove, but Arthur was already in too bad a mood to care.

“I’d like to hear what Merlin has to say about Camelot,” Gwen said pointedly.

That was just too bad for her, wasn’t it? “I’d rather not,” Arthur said stiffly. He could feel Morgana’s and Merlin’s eyes on him. At least neither dared to intervene.

“Why?” Gwen asked. She leaned towards him, in what could have been an intimate gesture and had more of a threatening air.

Arthur raised his eyebrows.

Her eyes flashed. “Why can’t he tell his story?”

Arthur pursed his lips, annoyed. The truth was probably that he didn’t want Merlin to get too into it, to give the game away and alienate the two women forever, but he couldn’t explain that for obvious reasons. “Why don’t you tell us something?” he said instead. “We barely know you, after all. It’d be good to learn more about you.”

She didn’t fall for it. “Morgana and Merlin know plenty about me.” She tilted her head to the side. “And you could have gotten to know me at Morgana’s party, if you’d wanted.”

“I was working,” Arthur said.

She nodded, clearly unconvinced. “I know,” she said. “But you had your chance to get to know me then. Now it’s my chance to get to know Merlin.”

There was a part of Arthur, a small part, that approved of her attitude. Clearly, she cared about Merlin, if only in the general sense of caring about a child that might not be allowed to express itself the way it should. She’d make someone a fierce mother someday, if she was that way inclined.

“You can get to know Merlin all you want,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “School, hobbies, family, whatever. But no King Arthur.”

“Why not?” There was a challenging set to her jaw. “If that’s what he wants to talk about, then that’s what I want to hear.”

“It’s okay,” Merlin mumbled, only to be glared into submission by both of them.

“Quiet,” Arthur said, at the same time that Gwen assured him, “It’s fine, Merlin. I’ll handle this.”

“You are not ‘handling’ my son,” Arthur said stiffly.

“No, I’m trying to encourage his creativity and personal interests.” Her tone was arch. “Which, quite frankly, is really _your_ job as his father, and I don’t see why you have to be this rude just because you don’t want the boy to talk.”

Arthur set his spoon down on his napkin. “Excuse me for a second.”

He pretended not to see their displeased expressions, ranging from wariness – Merlin – to disappointment – Morgana – when he scraped his chair across the tiles and headed for the loo. Since he’d only gone to get away, he washed his sugary hands to stall for time. His reflection in the mirror was bleary-eyed, with a hard set to his mouth and a trace of sunburn on his ears. It was probably time to head home before he ended up picking a fight for real.

He dragged his feet returning to their table. In his absence, they’d struck up a lively conversation, chortling over their half-empty bowls. Coming closer, Arthur wasn’t surprised to hear Merlin talking about their ancient alter egos again. Something about rat stew. Gwen clearly found it hilarious, and Merlin laughed at his own story because _she_ was laughing. Morgana, leaning sideways against the wall, was smiling as well, but there was something uncertain in her gaze when she flicked it up to meet Arthur’s. Something uncomfortable. Somehow, she’d caught on to the fact that there was something odd about the stories Merlin told, even if she hadn’t quite figured out what the issue actually was.

Gwen stopped laughing before Merlin did, catching sight of him a few seconds after his sister. Merlin, grin fading, craned his head around. His face fell when he saw Arthur, and he stuck a guilty spoonful of ice cream into his mouth.

Arthur sat down next to him, silent.

“Sorry,” Merlin muttered.

Gwen took the opportunity to glare at him some more. It bothered Arthur, that she apparently thought him a tyrannical patriarch, and it annoyed him that it bothered him. He didn’t even know her. There was no reason for him to care.

But none of that was Merlin’s fault, so Arthur leaned over to kiss the top of the boy’s head. “Are you done?” he asked quietly. “I’d like to go, if that’s alright.”

Whatever Merlin saw when he searched Arthur’s face, it was enough to convince him. He finished his serving in two large bites. Arthur’s sundae had turned to mush while he was gone, and he could still taste the stickiness at the back of his throat. He wasn’t sorry to leave it uneaten.

Gwen could take the 82 from Wellington Road so they walked her over, Arthur following several paces behind while she laughed with his sister and joked with his kid. Their goodbye was perfunctory – a half-hearted kiss on the cheek that he initiated and she was too late to respond to.

Merlin got a hug. “Goodbye, oh great wizard,” she said mock-solemnly.

“Goodbye, my Lady,” Merlin replied, giggling.

Saying goodbye to Morgana took her longer. While they hugged and kissed and whispered things in tones too low to understand, Merlin pushed his fingers into Arthur’s hold. He looked absolutely knackered, and a part of Arthur’s brain immediately began calculating if they had a chance of making it home before exhaustion turned into whinging and general crankiness.

The rest of him had his own bad mood to deal with. Gwen’s disapproval had soured the evening, and he found himself watching her cross the street with a frown on his face.

“You okay?” Merlin asked quietly.

Arthur stared after Gwen for a moment longer. Then he shook himself, glanced down at the kid and forced a smile. “It’s fine,” he said. He squeezed Merlin’s ice-cream sticky fingers, his grimace turning into something a little more natural. “Don’t worry about me.”

Merlin spent most of the ride to their house rattling around the back of Morgana’s car on a sugar-high. Thankfully, both for Arthur’s sanity and the boy’s livelihood, he drooped suddenly when they’d just passed the M1, and didn’t even protest very much when Arthur sent him off to get ready for bed straight away. Morgana loitered awkwardly until Arthur invited her in for a drink as thanks for indulging his kid, even if he’d wanted to strangle her for it for most of the drive over.

He had beer out and ready by the time she’d stopped dithering, and laughed when she seized one gratefully.

“I have entirely underestimated how exhausted a school’s worth of screaming children would make me.” She shook her head. “I think my ears are still ringing.”

“You didn’t really have to stay,” Arthur pointed out.

"I was there to cheer on my nephew," Morgana said haughtily.

Arthur rolled his eyes. "And Gwen?" he asked. "Was she there to cheer you on while you cheered him on?"

Morgana’s brows furrowed elegantly. “Gwen is my friend,” she said. “And she adores Merlin. Don’t tell me you object to her being there.”

“She hates me,” Arthur said. He sounded a little like he was whining, perhaps, but currently he had no issue with feeling sorry for himself. _Somebody_ had to feel bad on his behalf, and he had the feeling nobody else would step up to the task. “She makes me feel like an utter arse.”

His sister clicked her tongue. “She doesn’t know you.”

Arthur scoffed.

“Fine, she doesn’t know your good sides.”

Oh, great. That made him feel so much better.

When he said as much, Morgana graced him with an embarrassed shrug. “So you acted like an arse when you met her, Arthur; it happens. It certainly wasn’t the first time it happened to you.”

“Oh, thank you,” Arthur said. “You always know just what to say to make me feel better.”

With an elegant shrug, Morgana inclined her head. “She’s also met Sophia and heard a lot about Vivian, who were – let’s be honest – not the most flattering reflections of your decision-making abilities.”

Groaning, Arthur let his head drop back against the couch. He covered his face with his hands and sighed.

A moment later, Morgana’s weight settled next to him. Without looking up, he mumbled, “You know what the worst thing about the whole business is? I can’t even blame this one on Merlin, because he didn’t even instigate anything. That was all her.”

He peeked at her when she scoffed; just as he’d hoped, she was smiling a little. “You like her, huh?” she asked gently.

With a huff of frustration, Arthur hid his face once more. “And I don’t even know _why_ ,” he griped. “All she’s done so far is give me the cold shoulder, and now I just can’t stop wanting to prove myself to her.”

Morgana hummed thoughtfully. “Sounds like… _feelings_.”

Her tone was teasing, light, but Arthur knew she actually meant ‘attraction,’ and groaned again. “I’ve had half a conversation with her, Morgana; she’s not my soul mate. And I don’t like feelings,” he said. “Life was so much easier when I was an emotionless corporate robot.”

“Arrogance is a feeling,” Morgana reminded him.

He tried to push her off the couch in retaliation, but somehow the motion ended up with her not on the floor, but sprawled out next to him, her hair fanning over his arm.

“You’ll be fine,” she said quietly. “Even if she never changes her mind about you, you’ll be fine. You’ll still have Merlin, and me. Our parents, even. You will still have a family, and you’ll be fine.”

Part of the problem, Arthur figured, was that Gwen was apparently Morgana’s new best friend. Morgana had mentioned her a few times before, but now she was _everywhere_ \- on Morgana’s couch when Arthur and Merlin came over Saturday mornings, having spent the night; in the seat next to him went they went to see the latest Marvel release at the Vue Cinema; at the far end of the table at Uther’s birthday dinner.

“Do you think they’re – you know?” Vivienne asked Arthur in an undertone at that last occasion, leaning half into his lap, clinging to her glass for mock support. At least it had only been wine, recently. “Not that there would be anything wrong with that, of course.”

Arthur shrugged. Absently, he brushed a thin thread of lemongrass off Merlin’s shoulder, and smiled when Merlin gave him a questioning look. “I don’t know,” he told her, just as quietly. “I suppose we’ll find out eventually.”

Unfortunately, he was fairly sure they were not _you know_ , which merely made her presence all the more grating, but eventually he resigned himself even to that. When he came home from work one night with a briefcase full of paperwork still to go through to find Merlin sandwiched between Morgana and Gwen on his own couch, in his own house, he only sighed. He leaned between the two women to press a kiss to the top of Merlin’s head and said, quietly, “I’ll be in my office.”

With the door open, he could hear them chatter quietly while he worked. At some point, she passed by on the way to the guest bathroom, and a handful of minutes later, in which Arthur stared blankly at the page in front of him and didn’t take in a word, the pipes creaked and her shoes clattered against the floorboards.

She must have come straight from work, wearing a prim skirt and heels, and Arthur wondered idly what Merlin saw in her that had him so sure they were meant for each other. It was nonsense, clearly, considering Merlin’s Gwen had been mentioned a lot longer than Morgana’s had. Still, Arthur was a little surprised that that Gwen Merlin had talked about when he and Arthur first met had translated so neatly into the Gwen passing by his open door right now.

It was just... He was so _adamant_ about it. Merlin lived in his fantasy world so certainly that sometimes Arthur found himself, idly, entertaining the idea that he was right, and they were all reborn players on the grand stage of destiny, cluelessly rambling forth with only Merlin, tragically misunderstood, in the know. That perhaps he really was King Arthur, saviour of all, prophesized to come to mankind's aid in its hour of greatest need.

"Gwen?" he called.

She turned. Her face fell a little when she realized who had hailed her, which in turn made Arthur’s stomach sink. She rallied quickly, though, brushing down her skirt once before she came into the room. A couple of curly strands of hair had escaped from her stern bun and fell into her face. “Arthur,” she said. “Can I help you?”

“I was just wondering.” Arthur frowned and rotated his pen on his desk. He gestured through the air between them. “There’s nothing romantic between us, is there?”

Her barely-suppressed panic would have been funny if Arthur hadn’t been the cause.

“Do you… want there to be?” she asked carefully.

Arthur didn’t have to be a social genius, which he wasn’t, to tell she wasn’t exactly jumping at the opportunity. “No,” he said, biting down on the disappointment welling up in his gut. If he tried hard enough, he could probably convince himself it was just the general sting of rejection, that it was simply the thought of someone not liking him and not the idea of not being liked by _Gwen_.

He waved a hand and looked away. “No, it was just something Merlin said,” he mumbled. “You know how he is.”

“Right,” she said after a moment, and another moment after that, he could hear her heels clattering away.

No, he told himself firmly. He was just being stupid.

“So,” Morgana said, when Arthur was busy rinsing off the plates they’d used for brunch and Merlin was wreaking havoc in the living room, from the sound of it.

Arthur was starting to grow wary every time she even opened her mouth. “Yes?” he said.

Morgana leaned an elbow on the counter next to his and smiled at him. “You’ll have to let me take a look at your calendar,” she said. "I was thinking that perhaps I might take Merlin to see _Matilda_."

Arthur raised sceptical eye brows.

"What?" She asked, raising her hands into the air. "You don't know if he likes musicals, and he'll probably enjoy the magical aspect of it."

"And get it into his head that it's okay to avenge all his perceived slights as long as he's sneaky about it? Morgana, the point is to get him more accustomed to reality, not less."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. It's a children's story, Arthur, he's not going to be starting a rebellion because of it. And I know you read to him from that Arthurian legends book, so don't act like you don't know it."

Arthur raised his hands in defeat. "Fine," he said. "Fine. Don't let me stop you."

She laughed. "It's cute how you think you're going to get out of it."

Say what you’d like about Morgana, she was nothing if not efficient. Two weeks later, they skipped over their usual morning date and met up that evening at the Cambridge theatre instead. Merlin seemed willing enough. Arthur had even managed to bully him into wearing a nice shirt, an effort that was lost in the crowd of chattering, sloppily dressed tourists, sweaty and dusty after a day of tromping around the sights.

With Merlin clinging to his blazer, Arthur picked up their tickets at Will Call. Morgana had sent him a text saying she was upstairs at the bar, of course, so all they needed to do was navigate their way through throngs of foreigners yammering at each other on their way upstairs. Arthur had to admit he wasn’t quite in the mood. At least Merlin wasn’t running off to get lost in the crowd, but Arthur would have almost preferred that to the way the kid was pulling at his clothes the whole way up the stairs.

“Arthur!” Morgana called, waving a regal hand, the other clutching a tiny wineglass.

Arthur felt the smile slip off his face when he saw who she was with. Merlin was delighted, of course, running off towards Morgana with a grin and a delighted exclaim.

Arthur followed at a more sedate pace. “Morgana,” he said, with a quick kiss to her cheek. “Gwen.”

She flushed a little, just barely noticeable with her skin tone. “Arthur,” she said.

“How have you been?” Arthur asked her, because even caught off-guard and annoyed, he still had manners.

At least he was saved from actually having to use them when Merlin pulled on his sleeve again. “I want M&Ms,” he said.

“I’ll take you,” Gwen jumped in quickly, and pulled Merlin away towards the concession stand before anyone could object.

The moment the two were out of earshot, Arthur took Morgana by the wrist and pulled her close. “Why is Gwen here?” he hissed.

His sister gave him a sunny smile. “I invited her.”

"You're a meddler," Arthur said, quite happy with how accusing he sounded.

Morgana took a mocking little bow. "Maybe I just want my darling little brother to find the happiness he so deserves," she said.

"No, you just like to meddle."

Morgana smiled.

“Christ,” Arthur said, and set his sights on the bar instead.

With an overpriced and undersized glass of wine in his system, and a water afterwards to keep him from actually feeling its effects – he refused to entertain even the notion of getting tipsy, not with both Merlin and Gwen around – he at least felt capable of withstanding Morgana’s smug smile as they made their way to their seats.

Still, he sat the kid between himself and Gwen, Morgana at the far end. He’d be damned if he was going to be sitting there like they were on a _date_ , of all things, after she’d shot him down. If Merlin liked her so much, _he_ could bloody well hold her hand for the scary parts.

Of course Merlin, being Merlin, traumatized by meeting Arthur’s girlfriend but capable of beating a six-year-old to pulp, wasn’t bothered by the scary parts at all. He watched Mrs. Trunchbull terrorize her students very carefully, but without so much as a flinch, and without even a glance in Gwen’s direction. In fact, Arthur was a little surprised how well behaved Merlin was the entire time. Sure, he twitched his feet and craned his head around to look at the audience during the talky bits, and snuggled under Arthur's arm during the part with the escapologist, but that was nothing compared to the general noise and havoc the other kids in the audience seemed intent on wreaking.

He tightened his arm around Merlin's shoulders, suddenly fond of this little old man he'd adopted. "I'll protect you," he whispered, so quietly Merlin probably couldn't even hear him, and pressed a quick kiss into the boy's hair.

When he looked up, it was to find Gwen watching him. She whirled away to watch the stage when he caught her, a dim blush barely visible on her cheeks in the darkness, and Arthur's heart gave a sharp jolt.

"And then – boom!" Merlin gestured sharply with his free hand, the one he wasn't using to drag Arthur past the indulgently smirking ushers. "Rebellion! Sticking it to the man."

"I was there, Merlin," Arthur assured him, though he didn't have much hope that it would actually get the kid to shut up. "Hang on, we need to wait for Morgana and Gwen."

Merlin hesitated at that, face falling. No doubt he wanted to run out and stage an uprising right this very second. He let Arthur pull him into an alcove, though, out of the way of the crowds streaming towards the exits, before he asked, "Are you sure you and Gwen don't like each other?"

Arthur felt a sharp pang at that, because, well, it wasn't _him_ who was so adamant it wouldn't work out, was it?

But telling the intricacies of that to Merlin would only make the kid even more inclined to meddle, and since they were practicing not sticking your nose in other people's business, Arthur just gave a regretful smile. "We had a chat about it, like I said. But just because she's not my girlfriend doesn't mean she can't be in your life, Merlin, okay? I'm sure she'd like it if you invited her around now and again."

Merlin pursed his lips, unimpressed.

Arthur rubbed at his eyes. “Merlin, I’m tired,” he said. “Can we not fight about this now?”

The kid’s grimace turned into a pout, but he shrugged, and Arthur was exhausted enough that he’d take it. A couple more people had taken refuge in their corner, anyway, cutting any intimate conversation short, so he turned to scan the apparently never-ending crowd of people escaping the theatre proper. He thought he saw Morgana’s hair somewhere by the doors, but it was too crowded to tell, even though her heels had her as tall as just about any man here.

Merlin tugged on his slacks. When Arthur turned, frowning, he found himself face to face with a balding man who couldn’t be much older than Arthur himself, but certainly with a lot less charm at his disposal. He had on a patchy blazer and wasn’t carrying a camera, but Arthur knew reporters when he saw them. Or at least this one, because the man oh-so-liked to attend Arthur’s public speeches and then attempted to subtly ridicule Arthur in the Q&A afterwards, and Arthur wasn’t the type to easily forget a face as unpleasant as this one.

“Mr. Pendragon.” The man thrust a hand at him. “William Brooks.” He gave Merlin a shark-toothed smile. “And the controversial young man, I presume.”

Arthur pushed Merlin behind his back, hoping to God that the boy would behave himself for once. “Leave him out of this,” he said.

“Oh, Mr. Pendragon, don’t be like that. I only want to speak to you for a moment. Get a couple of quotes.”

Arthur, with a low growl, lifted Merlin onto his hip. “You can quote me on this, then – no comment.” Once again catching sight of Morgana’s locks in the crowd, he stepped into the throng of people and let it carry them away. Merlin, of course, couldn’t be bothered to be shy the one time it was prudent – instead, he stared back at Brooks over Arthur’s shoulder, giving the man his fiercest glare. And Arthur could understand the impulse, and even condoned it, but when it came to actual face-to-face interaction, the less reporters had on you, the better.

“Merlin,” he said, squeezing his waist.

The boy glanced down at him, and then over at Morgana when she, reaching past several theatregoers, seized Arthur’s wrist.

“There you are,” she said. “I was rather afraid the Trunchbull had got you.”

“Not the Trunchbull, no,” Arthur said.

Morgana’s look turned abruptly sharp. “What’s wrong?”

Arthur shook his head. He didn’t know what she saw in his face, but neither she nor Gwen pressed – instead, they let him set a sharp pace for the exit, glancing back over his shoulder every now and then to see if he could spot Brooks’ shiny head in the crowd.

On their way out into a light drizzle, Merlin tugged on his ear. “He’s gone,” he said.

Arthur nodded curtly. He wasn’t willing to drop his defences quite so easily, but he did slow his pace a little, allowing Morgana to catch up and ask, “Who’s gone?”

“Reporter,” Arthur said. He ushered the lot of them down Mercer Street, towards Long Acre, the elation of the show gone from their faces now, replaced with suspicion and dread. Arthur hated that he was at fault for that, but he hated people like Brooks even more.

They quickly cleared the crowd of people mingling by the doors. Arthur glanced over his shoulder a few more times, but no one appeared to be following them, and once they’d turned the corner, there was – luck at last! – a line of taxis loitering around.

“I assume you won’t want to come out for a drink with Gwen and me?” Morgana asked.

Arthur shook his head. He opened the back door for the two of them and gestured at the taxi behind. “You go on ahead, we’ll just go home.”

They said their goodbyes quickly, mindful of Brooks and his potential reappearance. Arthur still felt a pang of regret when Gwen slid into the back of the cab. She didn’t so much as look back at him when the car pulled away, and damn Merlin anyway for putting those ideas in his head.

With a sigh, Arthur gestured the kid looking lost on the curb to the next taxi and opened the door for Merlin. “Get in.”

Merlin didn’t move. “But I thought we were taking the tube back?”

Arthur slapped the boy lightly on the seat of his jeans. “Get into the cab, I said.”

Scowling, the boy did as he was told. Arthur cast another quick look around, but Brooks still didn’t seem to have caught up with them. He slid into the taxi as well, then, and, after giving the driver their address, leaned back into the cushions with a sigh.

The taxi pulled into the road amidst bleeps of horns. Arthur waited until they’d passed Leicester Square and were on their way up Charing Cross Road before he groaned and reached up to loosen his tie.

When he glanced over, Merlin was scowling at him.

“What?” Arthur asked. “Did I offend your delicate sensibilities?

“Why did you run away?” Merlin asked. “You could have taken him, easy.”

“That’s lovely, Merlin.” Arthur ran a hand through his hair, mussing it from its neat comb. It wasn’t like they’d be going anywhere else. “Unfortunately, the way of the sword isn’t the only way to fight, and I’m not suicidal enough to go up against the press.”

The boy turned to stare out the window. Even with his face turned away, Arthur recognized his glower. When Arthur met the cabby’s eyes in the rear view mirror, the man quickly flicked his gaze back to the road, and Arthur sighed. He reached over to prod Merlin roughly in the shoulder.

“Are you mad because I didn’t throw down my glove at his feet, or because we’re killing the planet after all?”

Merlin’s gaze flickered to him and then away again. “I don’t really want you to fight,” he said.

“So it’s the petrol, then.” When Merlin didn’t respond, Arthur sighed again. “Merlin, and I never believed I would say this, to anybody, but – your welfare means more to me than saving the environment. Okay? I would take a taxi every day if that was what it took to keep you safe.”

Merlin looked down at his lap. “You don’t have to,” he said after a while.

With a tired sigh, Arthur slumped deeper into his seat before he reached over to pat Merlin’s head. “I know I don’t have to,” he said. “But I would.”

Come summer, once it was barely even warm enough, Elena decided their Hampstead Heath football season was at an end and that they should all head for the bathing ponds instead. Arthur figured they could always run off and play anyway if the swimming got boring and agreed. When Elena mentioned inviting a friend along, he even called Morgana. To his utter shock, she accepted. That she brought Gwen, however, was no surprise at all.

Elena’s friend was a giant called Perceval, who’d in turn showed up with his girlfriend, a cheerful, curly-haired hippie called Emmyria. She was heavily pregnant - six months, Elena had said, but she looked _huge_ \- and Arthur, having circumvented that entire aspect of acquiring a child, spent so much time staring at her bare belly that he was probably bordering on creepy.

He was a little relieved when everybody decided for a second dip. The ponds were fun, but cold and also a little grimy, and having everybody play at happy couples and Gwen there in a bikini but not being allowed to touch her was wearing on his nerves. It was a lot more soothing to lay back on his towel with his sunglasses on his nose, pretending the scattered sunbeams were actually warming him up, and watch the clouds go by until his eyes crossed and he closed them for a bit instead.

When he looked up, Gwen had sat down next to him. She smiled a little, hesitant. Arthur desperately wanted to sit up and fuss with his hair, but with him lying down and her sitting over him there was no way to keep the motion casual, so he kept motionless through sheer force of will.

"Hello," she said quietly. There was something off about the way she said it, something odd and unfamiliar, so Arthur kept silent and his eyes on her.

Somewhere behind her, the rest of the group was still splashing around the water, adults and children all mixed together. They weren’t really that far away, but there was enough distance for some semblance of privacy, and the way she was looking at him now made him glad for it.

Slowly, without moving his eyes away, Arthur pushed his sunglasses into his hair.

“Better,” Gwen said. She looked down at him for a moment, and he looked back up at her, until she remembered herself and jumped.

“I – I wanted to tell you something,” she said, laughing a little. Mouth still curved into a smile, she gestured loosely at Merlin. "Morgana mentioned you have your doubts sometimes, but watching you two interact, you're certainly on par with any other parent I know."

"Thank you," Arthur said, hushed. It seemed like a quiet sort of conversation.

"I mean it."

Arthur smiled, wry. "Maybe now," he said. "But you had a terrible opinion of me in the beginning."

She flushed. "I did not!"

"Oh, you did." Arthur laughed a little, shifted. "I'm not saying it wasn't deserved, but you most certainly did."

Gwen bit her lip.

Arthur used the lull in conversation to check on Merlin. Percy looked like he had the kid well in hand, though, currently dangling him over the water by his ankles with the kid breathless with laughter, so Arthur wasn't too worried. He hadn't been too sure at first, concerned the boy would run rings around Percy's sweet nature, but apparently sheer size won out over little-kid-crazy in the end.

Gwen cleared her throat awkwardly. "I had my doubts in the beginning, I'll admit, but...”

Arthur didn’t think it was only her imagination, how meaningfully she trailed off there. Slowly, he pushed up onto one elbow. “But you think differently now?”

“I think the world of you now,” she said quickly, then looked away. “Arthur,” she said quietly.

Arthur had almost grown used to that jolt by now, the sharp jab of emotion that wasn’t entirely pleasant, leaving him breathless and dry-mouthed every time. Her attention was intoxicating.

“Gwen,” he said.

She looked down at her lap.

Arthur took a deep breath. "Would you like to go out with me sometime?"

She blushed. “I’d – I’d like that,” she said.

“Me too,” Arthur admitted, and then lay back down and resettled his sunglasses on his nose before anyone could see him blush.

To Arthur’s utter surprise, his father and stepmother absolutely jumped at the chance to watch Merlin for an evening, and offered to come babysit at Arthur’s house, even, before he had a chance to change his mind. They played Clue in the living room while Arthur got ready for his ‘mystery date’ and had taken a break to discuss dinner when Arthur tied his shoes. He’d never thought he’d hear his father argue so forcefully for take-away Thai, but apparently wonders never ceased.

It was almost as miraculous as Gwen agreeing to go out with him after all.

"I'm off," he said, before his simmering nerves had a chance to boil over. He almost tripped over Merlin when he turned around, the boy having suddenly appeared behind him, Vivienne in tow. He took a steadying breath, slipped his coat from its hanger, and said, "Any last words?"

"If she asks for your credit card number, she's not after your heart of gold."

With a groan, Arthur leaned down to kiss Merlin's scowling cheek. "You're about eighty years too young to say stuff like that," he said. "Behave yourself. I'll be back late."

"You're coming back though?" Merlin asked, twisting his fingers in the hem of his jumper.

"I said I would so I would." Arthur ruffled the boy's hair. He shot Vivienne a smile. "Enjoy your evening, alright?" He gave Merlin a secretive smile, though the words were more for his stepmother to hear. "Let your grandparents dote on you a bit."

He grinned, mission successful, when her eyes developed a hint of unnatural shine. Even if this thing with Gwen didn't work out, Heaven forbid, he had a feeling it would be good for the family regardless.

They ended up at a tiny Thai place that Gwen knew, one with Tom Yung Goong spicy enough to sear Arthur’s tongue and cheap wine, but plenty of it. Vivienne would no doubt be appalled at how much Arthur was enjoying himself, but he didn’t care. He had Gwen with him, and she was as lovely as he’d hoped, and if she liked going to places like this chances were good she wouldn’t mind Merlin coming with them from time to time either.

It probably should have horrified Arthur that he was now single parent enough to want to take his kid along on dates, but he was stuck with Merlin now – worse, even, _wanted_ to be stuck with Merlin – and he wasn’t risking another Vivian.

Or another Sophia.

But he didn’t think Gwen was like that. She laughed at Arthur’s mangled pronunciation but just as readily laughed at herself when her curry made her eyes water. It was her idea to order every single dessert on the menu so they wouldn’t have to decide which ones to try, and when dinner was winding down, she offered to pay because technically, she had been working up to asking him out when he’d unceremoniously jumped the queue.

“I’m very sorry about that,” Arthur said, with a hint of a grin. “But you do have to remember I was raised a Pendragon, and if I let you pay on the first date, my father will dig himself a grave just so he can turn in it.”

She laughed, a delighted peal of laughter that made Arthur’s stomach swoop. “Next time, then,” she said.

“I hope so,” Arthur said. It came out a lot more vulnerable than he’d intended, and he lowered his eyes a moment later when her face turned soft and sympathetic.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve said it yet, so I will now. I know I was harsh in my judgment of you, and I'm sorry."

"I deserved it," Arthur said, which was mostly a lie.

Gwen's mouth twitched, like she suspected what he was thinking, but she didn't comment on it. Instead, she raised her glass. “To learning from mistakes,” she said, and Arthur met her toast with a smile.

Kissing Gwen was going to be Arthur’s new favourite thing in the world.

“You look happy,” Morgana said softly, over the top of her champagne glass. It was sunny out, if not particularly warm, and they’d taken their after-brunch drinks out to the pool. Merlin sat on the ledge, out of earshot of Morgana’s quiet words, sloshing his bare legs through the water. He still didn’t like the pool very much, though he’d not had any fits about it since the first time. In any case, his discomfort appeared to be diametrically opposed to how far away Arthur was from it.

“I am.” Arthur only had coffee, hot enough that he burned the tip of his tongue when he took a sip. “Gwen is – she’s – I just. She makes me want to be a better person.”

Her eyes twinkled. “I suppose I’m forgiven for meddling, then?”

Arthur hmphed. He still sounded unbearably fond, and judging from her smile, she knew it all too well.

“She’s good with him, too,” he said, nodding his chin at Merlin. “And he adores her.” He shot Morgana a quick look before he, lowering his voice, leaned in close. “Mind you, he doesn’t know it’s her, yet. But he’s so difficult all the time, with everyone, but when he’s around her, he’s the easiest kid in the world to love. I didn’t realize he was capable of being a, you know, a good kid, until she came around.” 

His sister’s expression lost some of its lightness. “He’s a sweet boy,” she said, hesitantly.

Arthur stared at her face for a moment. He couldn’t tell how much she really knew – he’d never really talked about Merlin’s many issues with her. She knew vaguely that there had been an incident with Mordred, and that Merlin was signed up for counselling, but she didn’t know just how deep the boy’s issues really ran, Arthur didn’t think.

For a moment, he considered telling her. Telling her everything, from Merlin’s made-up magic world to the role Morgana played in it, every hideous thing Merlin had ever said about their friends, their family. But he couldn’t, not with Merlin this close, and if he didn’t tell her now, he never would.

He thought of how heartbroken she would look and smiled instead. “Especially around Gwen,” he said. “I think she has a magic touch. She makes everyone feel great about themselves, unless she thinks you need straightening out.”

Morgana’s lips twitched. “That she does,” she said. She hesitated. “I assume things weren’t great, then, before? Before her?”

Arthur took another too-hot sip of coffee. “Do you know that feeling where you didn’t realize what you were missing until it was finally handed to you? Ever since Merlin - happened, I think I needed someone to validate that decision, to tell me I did the right thing. And nobody did. Until her.”

Serious again, Morgana set her glass down and folded her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you doubt yourself, Arthur,” she said. “I do adore Merlin, very much.”

“I know that,” Arthur assured her. He didn’t think he needed to remind her how appalled she’d been at first. “It’s just – Sophia and Vivian, and people at work…” He waved a helpless hand. “They all act like I’m the lowest of the low for adopting a kid. She might be the only woman in London who actually thinks I'm more desirable now, and not less."

When he looked up, Morgana had such a tender look on her face that he drew back, just in case she might try to hug him.

She didn’t, though. Instead, she said, “You’re a lovely man, Arthur. I’m glad Gwen can finally see that.”

“Have you told him, yet?” Gwen asked one evening, when they were lounging on her couch watching, of all things, the weather forecast.

Arthur shook his head. “He…” He hesitated, but there wasn’t really a delicate way to put this. “He doesn’t have the best track record with meeting my romantic entanglements, is the thing.”

Gwen gave a small, confused shake of her head. “He’s already met me.”

“Not as my – as someone I’m, you know. I like.” He could feel the heat prickling in his ears and spreading down the back of his neck, but at least his discomfort made Gwen smile.

“I think it’ll be fine,” she said. She reached for Arthur’s hand and folded it between her own. “But I promise I won’t take it personally if it isn’t.”

Arthur couldn’t help it; he leaned in to kiss her. “I just really want you two to get along,” he confessed quietly.

Something sparked in her eyes at that. She nodded, pulling him back to her, and then they didn’t talk for a while.

Arthur set a plate of pancakes down in front of Merlin where he was sprawled out in front of the television – it wasn’t a bribe – and took a deep breath. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Merlin snickered. When Arthur shot him an arch look, he said, with the long-suffering tone of someone twice his age, "You'd think you'd learn."

Arthur couldn't help his amusement. Any other day he would have been annoyed by the attitude, perhaps, but today it just seemed funny. Perhaps it was hysterics. "Do you think I should just give up dating altogether, then?"

"Well, kind of, if you keep bringing home girls like that." Merlin sounded a lot like somebody's mother. It was as disconcerting as it was funny.

"This one's different," Arthur said, with as straight a face as he could manage.

"Yeah, yeah." Merlin waved him off, and Arthur got the distinct impression that he was being shooed. "Whatever. I'll meet her. Don't expect me to be nice."

"I expect you to act with the decorum befitting your age and station," Arthur said, and then wondered vaguely when he had turned into Vivienne. He pulled a face. Clearly, he and Merlin deserved each other. "Loathe as I am to set myself up for disappointment."

"Whatever," the boy said. He gave Arthur a little shove. "I will be on my very best behaviour if you just let me watch this."

Merlin spent a lot of time over the next couple of days rolling his eyes. He did it, very pointedly, every time Arthur hinted at the subject at hand, and Arthur wasn’t sure how he felt about it. On the one hand, it was extremely annoying, and that kept him from ever elaborating, so Merlin still had no idea Arthur’s ‘latest chit’ was actually Gwen.

On the other hand, it kept him from telling Merlin that the woman in question was actually Gwen, and despite how adamant the kid had always been that the two of them were made for each other, now that the time was here, he found himself oddly leery of telling him.

So leery, in fact, that they ended up in the park on Sunday morning, loitering around the playground waiting for Gwen to get there, and Merlin still had no idea who it was they were expecting. So far he only knew that Arthur’s mystery date was late, and getting later by the minute, and every so often he raised pointed eyebrows at Arthur from the monkey bars or the merry-go-round or the top of the slide.

Arthur tried to smile back confidently every time, but it wasn’t working so well. In retrospect, he wasn’t sure keeping Gwen’s identity from Merlin had been all that brilliant an idea. It had seemed like sound logic then – because Merlin might like Gwen, and perhaps insist that the two of them ought to be together, but Arthur couldn’t shake the memory of how excited Merlin had been to meet Sophia, right up to the moment when she’d walked through the door.

What if, now that Gwen and Arthur were a thing, Merlin decided he didn’t like her after all? If she showed up and he decided to act like he had with Sophia, she was going to be so very hurt. Arthur wasn’t sure he’d know what to do if she was actually hurt. Perhaps he should have told Merlin ahead of time – let him get used to the idea, instead of springing it on him like this, when she was already here.

He should have told him. Why hadn’t he told him?

“Merlin,” he said. It came out as a croak, and by the time he’d cleared his throat, he’d lost his resolve once more. Maybe it was cowardly, but he wanted backup for this. If Merlin was going to be – well, _Merlin_ about this, he wanted Gwen by his side. He wasn’t sure if a bad reception was going to make him want to cry or make him want to strangle Merlin, but regardless if it was to offer a tissue or hold him back, he wanted her there.

With a huff, Merlin flopped down on a fake, rubber-ish boulder next to him. “Can we go home now?” he asked. “I don’t think your chit is coming.”

Arthur poked him in the back of the head. Perhaps a little hard, but come on. Was it really to ask for at least a hint of manners?

“Fine,” Merlin grumbled. He said more, voice growing whinier by the second, but Arthur was no longer paying attention, because at his latest glance around, he’d caught sight of Gwen walking towards them.

She was wearing a long, flowing summer dress and a delighted smile, and Arthur felt a jolt that was both pleasure and another bout of nervousness. To cover for it, he turned to his – still complaining and still oblivious – kid and said, “Hey, guess what?”

He laid his fingers over Merlin’s eyes and turned him around, despite the boy’s half-hearted protest. He met Gwen’s eyes for a moment, gratified to see her looking just as nervous as he was, before he lifted his hands away.

“Merlin, I believe you know Gwen,” he said, and prepared for the worst.

Merlin looked at Gwen for what felt like forever. He tilted his head to one side, and then the other, and tapped his fingers against his chin, considering. Gwen stayed remarkably calm during the scrutiny, though she did shoot Arthur an uncertain look.

When Merlin suddenly dropped his hands, they both started, but Merlin didn’t look poised for an attack, verbal or otherwise. Instead, he held out his hand.

“Hullo, Gwen,” he said softly. He actually smiled. It was bizarre.

They shook very seriously.

“It’s good to see you again,” Merlin said.

Gwen nodded. “And you,” she said gravely; Arthur could see the corners of her mouth twitching.

The kid laced his fingers together and said, “I’m glad you’ve finally deemed Arthur worthy of your attention.”

She couldn’t keep her laughter contained at that. Merlin’s lips quirked as well, even as Arthur sputtered, “Hey! How do you know it wasn’t _her_ pining after _me_?”

Merlin waved him off. “Oh, please. You’re crazy about her.”

Gwen tried unsuccessfully to hide her laughter behind her hand; it was hard to tell where her breathlessly sputtering flush ended and her embarrassed yet pleased blush began.

“You’re unbelievable,” Arthur said.

The boy nodded. “It’s a burden and a curse,” he said. He leaned into Arthur’s legs and said, grinning up at him, “Don’t you think you should be buying me ice cream? For behaving myself so well?”

“Unbelievable and ruthless,” Arthur corrected himself, poking the kid in the chest. Still, he offered an arm to Guinevere. “Would you like some ice cream, my lady?” With his free hand, he snagged Merlin’s perpetually sticky fingers. He knew when he’d been beat, after all.

Merlin was duLac's last patient of the day. His scheduled meeting was still within business hours, the doctor had assured him, but usually by the time Arthur arrived to pick him up, the receptionist was already packing up for the day. Of course, that was with regular service on the Jubilee line, and not a twenty-five minute delay, but Kara waved him through regardless.

“Go on,” she said, over his breathless apologies. “No one’s cried yet, I promise.”

It wasn’t the crying Arthur was worried about, but he shot her a grateful smile regardless and headed back to the therapy room.

He hadn’t actually seen the doc and his kid interact in a while, hanging around the waiting room instead so as not to interrupt their discussions until they were done. The room looked very much the same, from what he could see through the large viewing window and the propped-open door. Their way of communicating, however, certainly had changed. duLac seemed to have given up on toys to aid him with Merlin. Instead, they had piles of books scattered around them, exercise sheets and history books and pens, Merlin sprawled out on the sofa lost in animated chatter while the good doctor lounged next to him with his heels on the coffee table, listening with rapt attention.

Merlin waved his hands enthusiastically, but Arthur wasn’t close enough to catch what he was saying. Instead, he caught only the tail end of their conversation when duLac laughed. “Wait, so I just – stabbed it? Rode at it and expected everything to turn out fine?”

“You were brave and trusting.” Merlin gave him a meaningful look. “ _Very_ trusting.”

“It sounds like it,” duLac said, still grinning. He spotted Arthur, then, and lifted his feet off the table. “And here’s Arthur. Go on.” He held out his fist for Merlin to bump. “See you next week.”

Merlin slid off his seat. He did his usual thing in greeting, the one where he didn’t stop walking until he’d smacked into Arthur’s side. It was the dumbest approximation of a hug Arthur had ever witnessed, once he’d figured out what the kid might be trying to achieve, but he settled an arm around Merlin’s shoulders regardless.

“You good?” he asked, as usual.

Merlin glanced up at him. “You’re _late_ ,” he said.

“I know, and you’re a paragon of virtue,” Arthur sighed, and nudged him towards the door.

He arrived early the week after.

Kara grinned at him like she could read every guilty, overcompensating thought right on his face. Maybe she could. Maybe that’s what psychology degrees were for.

“Go on in,” she said. “It’ll only be a couple more minutes.”

Quietly, so as not to disturb the good doctor and his boy, Arthur tiptoed down the corridor. The door to the therapy room was open, and when Arthur, staying clear of anyone’s line of sight, peered in, he could see a mop of dark hair badly in need of a haircut, or at least one better than anything Arthur could provide. Merlin tossed his head a moment later, shaking the bangs out of his eyes. His brows were drawn tightly together, either in uncertainty or in concentration. Arthur couldn’t really tell.

Frowning, he leaned closer, catching sight of duLac a moment later. The doctor was kneeling in front of his kid, face earnest and intent, his hands settling on Merlin’s shoulders after a moment’s hesitation.

“Remember what I said.”

Merlin pressed a shy finger against his lips. “Because they won’t get it,” he said, eyes sparkling.

duLac nodded. “Because it makes them afraid.” He gave Merlin a meaningful look. “Like the magic.”

With a rush of cold running down his spine, Arthur drew back. There was some innocent explanation for that little display, of course, but surely even duLac would admit that that was not a good bit of conversation to overhear. Slowly, mind reeling, Arthur backed away. An overwhelming part of him wanted to storm into the room and take duLac’s head off right then and there, but Arthur was a mature adult, wasn’t he? He could gather the facts before he made any snap decisions.

He made a point of taking a couple of heavy steps, and the door opened wide a moment later, Merlin heading straight for him and butting into his side. “You’re early!” he said. He sounded delighted to see Arthur, but not like he’d been saved from a perilous situation. Just like he was pleased to see him.

It would have made Arthur happy under normal circumstances, but he felt a little ill. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to be happy.

duLac, who’d paused in the doorway, held out Merlin’s backpack. “Why don’t we close up shop a little earlier tonight, then? Have a good trip home.”

“Thank you,” Arthur said shortly, taking it from him. He could see on the doctor’s face that the man was taken aback by his brisk tone, perhaps a little irritated, but he didn’t care. He wanted Merlin out of there; see how he reacted when the man was gone.

“Come on,” he said, reaching for the kid’s hand.

Merlin didn’t look particularly impressed by his tone, either, but he dutifully reached for it and let Arthur lead him down the hall. It made Arthur breathe a little more easily – all the way to the receptionist’s desk, when Merlin turned around and called a cheerful goodbye to the doctor, who’d yet to give up his watchful position at his office door.

Arthur gritted his teeth. There had _better_ be an innocent explanation, or there would be hell to pay.

He kept a close eye on Merlin for the rest of the evening, but the kid didn’t seem upset. Or weird. If anything, he was even more cheerful than usual, singing badly along to the radio while Arthur made dinner – open faced sandwiches; at least it was a different kind of carb this time – and eventually told some King Arthur story about the tyrannical cook and her monopoly on pies. It was from a film, he claimed belatedly, but Arthur had his doubts. There was a bit too much honest rage there for it to really be a retelling of someone else’s plight.

When Arthur pulled the sandwiches out of the oven, nudging the kid out of range with his hip, Merlin said, “Can I bring my book next week? I told Doctor Lance I’d show it to him.”

With a sigh, Arthur set the sheet down on the countertop and turned to the boy. “What do you and Doctor Lance talk about? That’s so secret?”

“It’s a _secret_ ,” Merlin said.

“Humour me,” Arthur said.

Merlin dithered for a moment. When Arthur raised an eyebrow, and then crossed his arms for good measure, he scowled.

“I tell him things. Made up things,” he added quickly. “When I’m there we pretend it’s all real, but when I’m not there I have to remember that this is the real world and I’m just a little boy.”

Arthur fixed him with a hard look that had the kid shuffling around uncomfortably, but he didn’t look like he was lying. Or maybe a little, but wasn’t that the point of a psychiatrist? That you could tell him things you didn’t want to tell anyone else? If Merlin was confessing to duLac any issues he might be having with Arthur, well – that would suck, but Arthur also didn’t want to force anything out of him that didn’t really matter in the long run. The whole thing was supposed to be about trust, after all.

And if duLac was helping Merlin cope with his… his ‘stories’ by giving him a safe space to explore them, then Arthur was all for it.

He uncrossed his arms. Merlin broke into a relieved smile, a sweet, charming expression that reminded Arthur painfully of how he’d looked in that office, alone with duLac, whispering and keeping secrets.

Slowly, he bent down to Merlin’s level and gestured him closer. “Hey, did Doctor. Lance ever… talk to you about people touching you under your clothes?”

Merlin nodded. “He said that I should gnaw the fingers off anybody who tried, and then go tell you and Gwen and Morgana and him and not stop talking about it until somebody called the coppers.”

Arthur felt the knot in his chest dissolve, slowly. “Right,” he said. “Yes, you should definitely do that.”

Arthur decided Gwen was the perfect woman around the time he cancelled on one of their Friday night dates because he was tired and hadn’t seen Merlin in what felt like years, and she called back a little while later, saying, “HMV had the original Star Wars trilogy, if you’re interested.”

“ _Yes_!” Merlin answered for him, from where he’d been listening in on their conversation, the little brat. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, _yes_.”

Arthur’s mouth twisted wryly. “You’re welcome to come over,” he said, which was how they ended up piled onto the sofa, humming along to the songs and getting little kernels of popcorn into every nook and cranny.

He sent Merlin up to bed after _A New Hope_ and let Gwen scooch under his arm instead. Instead of the mood heating up, though, she fell asleep halfway through Luke’s training on Dagobah. Which was just as well, considering there were noises coming upstairs that were definitely _not_ the signs of a little boy pleasantly asleep, so while Han and Lando had their snarky reunion, Arthur extricated himself and went to peer up the stairs.

From the top of the landing, where he could just barely see the TV screen, Merlin gave him a guilty look.

“Come on, then,” Arthur said, beckoning. He returned to the sofa and, when Merlin trailed after him, almost tripping over the too-long legs of his pajama bottoms, lifted the kid into his lap. “If anybody asks,” he said, “you went straight to bed after the first movie and pouted until you fell asleep. Agreed?”

“Okay,” Merlin mumbled. He settled his head against Arthur’s shoulder and watched the screen for a while with half-lidded eyes, though Arthur didn’t really get the feeling that he was paying a whole lot of attention.

“So tell me something,” he finally said, over the hiss and gurgle of the hibernation machine. “What’s so different about Gwen, hm?”

Merlin gave him an outraged look. “She’s right there!” he hissed.

“She’s snoring,” Arthur said. “I daresay we’ll be fine.”

Merlin laid his head back once more with a disgruntled frown. “It’s not nice,” he insisted.

Arthur probably would have bought, it, too, had not Merlin been Merlin and living with him for almost two years. Because there were manners, and there was avoidance, and the kid had none of the former and the latter in spades.

He squeezed Merlin’s sides and raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to tell me or are you going to go back to bed?”

Merlin scowled down at his knees. “I just – I like her. She’s always been nice to me.”

It should have made Arthur happy, hearing that, but instead all he got was a sinking feeling in his gut. “You mean before, don’t you,” he said. “You mean she’s nice in your fantasy world.”

“Not just in – there.” The boy glanced at him, and then back down. “She’s been nice here, too.”

“But that’s not why you like her.” Arthur told himself not to be disappointed. It didn’t matter why Merlin thought she was okay to have around – whether it was something she’d done or something he only thought she’d done, it was _her_ that he liked, and there was no reason for Arthur to resent the fact that Merlin couldn’t seem to see how great of a person she was in actuality, and not in some made-up magic world.

If only feelings worked like that.

“That’s not very fair,” Merlin said, voice cracking. He was staring at Arthur now, no doubt seeing his expression all too clearly. Against the glare of the television, Arthur could only vaguely make out his features, but looking back at him, Merlin could probably see whatever emotions were playing out on Arthur’s face all too well. “You can’t get mad at me for something I can’t help. That’s just – that’s _mean_.”

Arthur bit down on his anger with an iron will. “I’m not mad at you,” he said. “I just want you to be here, in the presence, and not off in lala-land making up stories. That’s what I’m angry about.”

Merlin was stiff on his lap, but didn’t shrug him off when Arthur gave him another, reassuring squeeze.

“I’m angry _for_ you. I want you to be happy, and it makes me mad that you can’t just be a boy like any other.”

“It’s really hard,” Merlin said. He looked down at his hands twisted together in his lap, picked at his cuticles with one fingernail. “I know you want me to only think about this life and not about my old – the made-up one, but I can’t always tell what happened where and sometimes I mess it up.”

Arthur nodded. That was what the medication was supposed to help with, telling the difference between what was real and what wasn’t, but duLac had been so adamant that pills weren’t necessary in this case, and Arthur didn’t actually want to be responsible for possible brain damage.

So instead of bringing all that up again, he said, “But you’re working on that with Doctor Lance.”

Merlin nodded. “I am,” he said. “But sometimes I meet someone and I remember them stabbing me in the gut and it’s really hard to smile and shake their hand.”

Arthur wanted to sigh, heartfelt; perhaps wrap his arms around the kid and hold him close. But Merlin was holding himself stiffly on Arthur’s lap, like he might crack and crumble if he so much as moved, and Arthur didn’t dare touch him.

With a whirr and a click, the last of the movie’s credits ended, returning the screen to the DVD menu and its loop of music. They’d listened to it at least four times before Arthur finally reached out a hand and very light brushed his fingertips across the hair at the back of Merlin’s neck.

“I understand that,” he said, although he didn’t think he did – not really. He could only imagine it to be some sort of waking nightmare, where everyone and anyone could turn out to be evil at any moment, and considering that Merlin wasn’t even ten yet and dealt with that every day, it was amazing that bi-weekly therapy sessions were really all he needed.

He laid his hand between Merlin’s shoulder blades. Merlin didn’t relax, but his shoulders lowered a little bit.

“I’m not asking you to get it right every time, Merlin, okay? If you run into someone that scares you, you can always come find me, okay? We can sort out what’s going on together.” He rubbed a small circle, the fabric of Merlin’s sleep shirt catching under his fingers. “Your head might get confused sometimes, and that’s what we’re trying to stop from happening, but sometimes your gut will tell you that someone is a bad person and it’ll be right. I don’t want you to end up in a bad or scary situation because you thought your mind was playing tricks on you.”

He did sigh, then, and let his hand flop down at his side. “But if we figure out that it’s your head that’s talking, and not your gut, then you have to try to move past that. Okay? I’m not asking you to know straight away what’s right and what isn’t. I’m only asking you to try.”

Merlin nodded. His face was a sharp profile against the flickering light of the TV, head bent to look at his knees. “I do try,” was what he finally said, his voice oddly – sharp? for one so young. “But it’s not easy, and sometimes my old life feels a lot more real than this one.”

“The made-up one,” Arthur said.

Merlin didn’t look up. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I meant.”

Arthur opened his mouth, frowning, when the DVD player finally turned itself off, pitching the room into blackness. Gwen shifted at that, amazingly enough, despite having stayed asleep for the entirety of their conversation. While he was waiting for her to settle again, half-leaning into his side now, he felt small hands prop against his thighs and then Merlin’s weight disappear. Arthur couldn’t see him at all, only hear his voice, sounding young and high and ancient.

“Goodnight, Arthur,” he said, his soft footfalls moving across the carpet and up the stairs before Arthur could properly figure out his tone.

Midmorning on a Sunday, a popup in the corner of his laptop screen informed Arthur of an email from Leon: _You might want to take a look at this_ , with a YouTube link below.

Dread curling in his stomach, he clicked. The loading image was one of his father, caught in an unflattering grimace. There was a London Live logo in the corner. None of it helped Arthur relax at all.

While the video buffered, he cast a look around for the kid. He'd last seen him wandering out into the garden, though with Merlin, you never really knew.

But no, he was still there, thrusting his splayed fingers at things and muttering under his breath with the resigned air of someone who'd stopped expecting results but was not yet willing to stop trying.

The video kicked in with a burst of static, the sound appallingly bad for what was apparently attempting to be a legitimate news station. There was a reporter and a mic and everything, and they'd even managed to ambush his father leaving some imposing building or other.

"Mr. Pendragon!" The reporter said, struggling to keep up with Arthur's father's brisk pace despite hobbling backwards in heels. "Is there anything you'd like to say about Merlin?"

Arthur held his breath. His father was excellent at diplomacy and public relations usually, but he had the unfortunate habit of letting his temper get the better of him, and they'd never really talked about the whole thing - about Merlin, and Arthur adopting a child without even _telling_ him. Just another instance of Pendragons not communicating with each other, and perhaps this was the moment it came back to bite him.

Onscreen, his father's face soured. "Not particularly," he said, trying to push past her.

The reporter blocked his path with her microphone. "And what about those websites and blogs exposing your adopted grandson's face to the world? Do you have anything to say about those?"

With a jolt of angry adrenaline, Arthur made a note of emailing Leon back immediately. He was from legal, surely there were some nice lawsuits he could slap those bloggers with.

The pixelated version of his father on his screen abruptly stopped moving.

"I would, yes," he said, with the poshest upper crust accent he possessed. “I find it absolutely despicable that there are entire blogs dedicated to placarding my grandson’s face all over the internet. Not to mention that publicizing pictures of children without consent is highly unethical, and Merlin's caregivers and family are perfectly capable of protecting him with any means necessary. So please, do take care to double check the content of your publications over the next couple of days."

He gave the cameras a shark's grin, all teeth, and that was the image the video froze on - that and the reporter's helpless smile.

Arthur laughed. He closed the tab, sent Leon a quick _Thanks_ in reply, and set the laptop aside to head out into the garden as well. It was a little chilly in just a long sleeved shirt, but Merlin lit up when he saw him, coming over to butt his head into Arthur's side.

Arthur, grinning, wriggled his fingers through Merlin’s hair. “My father likes you.”

Merlin looked absolutely horrified.

Arthur spent a moment debating whether or not to be offended, and settled on wicked amusement a moment later. He knew, deep down, that he should not have much fun baiting the kid, but hey. As far as he was concerned, it was all part of being a good dad.

Arthur woke up to the sound of something shattering downstairs. He held his breath for a moment, waiting, but no wailing followed it. Instead, there was a scrape of a chair and a few heartbeats later, the squeak of the supply cupboard door where Arthur kept the broom and dustpan, and Arthur relaxed back into the cushions.

Next to him, Gwen shifted with a sleepy noise. Arthur petted her hair until she relaxed back into a light doze before he carefully reached for his phone on the nightstand. It blinked at him with innocuous green, all innocent-like, like unlocking it wouldn’t yield five million new emails, calls and texts.

Arthur skipped the texts – too early for social calls – and all the emails from colleagues who didn’t know when to go home and relax, scrolling through the dozens and dozens of mails until one marked **Environmental Conference Oxford** made him pause.

He opened it with a press of his thumb and skimmed the opening paragraph, frowning. Someone had attached a couple of flyers, too, and an e-invite, and Arthur felt his mouth twist.

“What is it?”

When he looked over, Gwen gave him a sleepy smile. Arthur couldn’t help returning it, or leaning over to kiss her before he explained, “There’s a conference in Oxford the weekend of the thirteenth. Last minute invitation. It’s a pretty big deal.”

“Yeah?” she asked, shuffling closer.

“Yeah.” Arthur allowed himself a quick grin. “Their key note speaker dropped out yesterday, so now…”

“They’re asking you?” she finished, with a breathless smile.

Arthur smiled at her.

“That’s wonderful.” She leaned up to kiss him.

Arthur let her, absently. “What am I going to do about the kid?” he asked. It scared him sometimes, how easy it was to have his first thought in any situation be about his kid. Sometimes it scared him how _normal_ it felt, like there had never been an Arthur who didn’t think of Merlin first and everybody else second. “It’s three days, four if we count travel time – I can’t just foist him off.”

“Why don’t you take him with you?” Gwen asked. She pushed up onto her elbow, and smiled absently when Arthur reached up to toy with her hair. “You did say he wanted to know about your work, and that way he can see first-hand.” Her smile turned a little wicked. “And you have a convenient excuse for a quick get-away when you get bored.”

“You’re fantastic,” Arthur told her earnestly. “You should marry me.”

He hadn’t realized until that moment how much he meant it, but once the words had left his mouth, he was utterly unwilling to take them back. He _wanted_ to marry Gwen, wanted to keep her with him and Merlin forever and ever. He probably should have discussed the issue with Merlin first, but that would have required foresight, and it seemed like all rational thought went out the window when he was around Gwen.

She smiled at him, cheeks flushing with a rosy bloom. She wasn’t saying yes, but strangely enough, that didn’t bother Arthur very much. When she opened her mouth, hesitantly, he laid a finger on her lips.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “Just think about it.”

She nodded. When Arthur drew her close, she snuggled under his arm and ran her hand over the hair on his chest. “I don’t want to be married yet,” she said eventually.

Arthur, who hadn’t expected a reply for quite some time – days, perhaps weeks – raised his head to look at her. She turned hers, too, and tilted her chin up to kiss his jaw.

“But I _am_ amenable to being asked again in a couple of years.”

Arthur nudged her cheek with his nose. “Oh, good. That should give me adequate time to get Merlin used to the idea.”

“Merlin is not going to be the problem, I don’t think,” Gwen grinned, and as usual, she was probably right.

St. Paul’s wasn't too happy to hear about Merlin cutting class - something about him being an at-risk student and it not being good for him to miss extra days at school. Arthur made polite noises and didn't budge, and in the end he and Merlin, Thursday afternoon, met Gwen at the Costa at Paddington Station.

"Hello boys," she said, dropping into the free chair at their table. She squeezed Merlin's shoulder and leaned across the table to give Arthur a quick peck. Arthur returned it, half-waiting for Merlin to start making disgusted little kid noises, but the boy stayed quiet. When Arthur glanced over at him, suspicious, Merlin was watching them with a distinctly pleased look on his face.

Unsettled, Arthur produced a stack of papers from his briefcase. "Train tickets, hotel reservation, invitation," he said. He shot Gwen a quick look. "Last chance to back out."

Gwen stuck her tongue out at him. "You wish," she said. "I plan on having a fantastic weekend with this handsome young man here."

She grinned at Merlin, who chose that moment to finally frown.

"Gwen, ugh," he protested. "You're with Arthur. Don't be gross."

Gwen raised her eyebrows at Arthur, who tried very hard not to laugh. "Yeah, _Gwen_ ," he said. "Don't be gross."

She rolled her eyes at him, and the sweet smile he shot her in return. "You know, we're not on the way to Oxford yet," she warned.

Laughing, Arthur stood to gather up his belongings and the kid, who was swivelling his head back and forth as though he and Gwen were a particularly fascinating Ping-Pong match. "Come on, kid," he said. "Let's see if we can't find our train before Gwen runs out on us."

Merlin loved Oxford, of course. Arthur had the feeling he was a fan of anything and everything old, indiscriminately pointing out every bell tower and stained glass window and historic university building, while Arthur tended to consider instead the inefficient heating on one hand and the enduring building materials on the other. Gwen trailed alongside and laughed at the both of them, especially once Arthur hooked two fingers into the collar of Merlin's shirt to keep him from running off (again).

Check-in for the conference wasn't until the afternoon on Friday, so they slept in late at the Old Bank Hotel where the organizers had provided a room and spent the rest of the morning wandering along the historic streets, ducking into shops whenever it started to rain. At Oxford Castle, Merlin managed to get his hands on a magic staff and a star-patterned hat, though Arthur drew the line at buying a wooden sword for himself.

The woman at the register smiled indulgently at Merlin's excited chatter, and while he was patting himself down with his wallet, Arthur was struck with the sudden thought that he could get used to this. Not just indulging Merlin's whims, because quite honestly that was already so deeply entrenched in his everyday life that he could barely recall what he'd done in his free time before he'd gotten his hands on a child. No, he could get used to living like this – him and his kid and his woman, making the girls at the cash registers smile.

It wasn't just Merlin. It was Gwen, too, hooking her arm through his as she stifled her laughter. Arthur wanted to grow old with her - he wanted her in his life. He wanted this family. Another child even, perhaps two if Merlin grew a bit older and a little less prone to turning Arthur's hair prematurely grey.

Arthur put an extraordinary amount of concentration into pulling twenty quid from his wallet, head ducked low so they wouldn't see his face. He felt breathless with realization. Perhaps he shouldn't be, considering he'd been a de facto father for almost two years now, but Merlin has sort of just... happened to him. Arthur had never really considered himself to be a family man, and yet, here he was.

He handed the bank note over blindly, his “here” lost under Merlin's excited storytelling.

Gwen squeezed his arm. "Okay?" she whispered, and Arthur threw her a blinding grin.

He'd already asked her, so he wouldn't again - even though he really wanted to.

He abandoned Gwen’s to Merlin’s mercy – or perhaps it was the other way around – when the time came for his keynote speech. He’d done it several times already, when there was a panel he really wanted to sit in on or somebody asked for an impromptu meeting, but for the most part, they’d managed a mixture of sightseeing and talks that kept everybody happy. It helped that Merlin was apparently quite willing to listen in on badly presented, hair-raising findings as long as they made Arthur’s chosen profession look good, and that Arthur’s own patience for badly presented, hair-raising findings was actually quite low.

“Good luck,” Gwen told him, when he leaned in for a last-minute kiss.

Merlin clung to her hand, leaning towards Arthur like he wasn’t sure he was willing to let him go, and somehow looking at him made the thought of abandoning his hiding place at the back of the lecture hall and heading up to the podium overlooking the crowded room easier. He bent down to press a quick kiss to Merlin’s forehead, then ruffled his hair back into place.

“Be good for Gwen,” he said.

“You be good,” Merlin muttered, startling a laugh out of him.

“I hope so,” he said. He ran his hand through Merlin’s hand again, let Gwen squeeze his shoulder and then turned and marched into battle.

The speech went fine. A bit too long-winded in places, perhaps, and once he forgot the exact figures and had to shuffle through his notes for a moment, but overall it was fine. Most of it wasn’t anything new, anyway – the terrible state of the planet, the damning evidence that humankind was directly responsible for it, and how much people still refused to believe it. The part where he talked about what they were going to achieve now that they’d begun collaborating with Hyperion was very well received, and Arthur privately thought the applause he waved off at the end was quite enthusiastic.

“Excellent,” the moderator-slash-announcer said, stepping forward. He’d sat down for Arthur’s speech, taking the wireless microphone with him, and Arthur eyed it with envy.

The man glanced at his watch. “I do believe we have a bit of time for some Q&A, if you’re willing, Mr. Pendragon?”

Arthur inclined his head. It was even printed in the conference booklet - _Keynote speaker: Arthur Pendragon, followed by Q &A_ – but he assumed proper tone dictated he be asked.

The moderator beamed at him. “Before I open the floor to questions, however, I’d like to address one issue that has garnered a lot of attention over the past few weeks, and that is your recent adoption of a young boy. Would you perhaps like to say a few words on the topic?”

Arthur spent a moment reshuffling his notes to keep from lobbing them at the moderator’s head. When he lifted his head, though, his most charming smile was firmly in place. He could have sworn he heard someone in the front row swoon.

“I have to confess I’m a little confused as to how my son relates to the weather crisis we’re facing,” he said. “I do know the sun doesn’t actually revolve around him.”

The titters were hushed, but they were there, and that gave Arthur the push to keep going. Merlin was his kid, faults and all, and what kind of parent would Arthur be if he was going to listen to the Sophias and the Marks’ and the Brooks’ of the world slander him?

The moderator hesitated, red-faced; Arthur helpfully stepped in before the pause could grow to be too awkward. “But yes, since that particular topic has come up several times recently, I think I will address the issue.” He lifted a finger. “Just this once.”

He leaned in closer to the mic, letting his gaze sweep over what he could see of his audience. The first few rows obliged him by leaning forward as well, creating a conspiratory mood, like Arthur was about to impart some great secret upon them.

“The short answer is: I can’t imagine anyone going through the breath-taking horror of raising a child purely for a marketing stunt.”

He grinned, making sure they all knew he was kidding – expect he wasn’t, not really.

“If there’s one thing I learned in my time with Merlin, it’s that children are not something one can take on lightly. Anyone not fully committed to the task would have faltered before they even really started.” He blew out a sharp breath. “But since there are those damnable rumours that simply will not die, you, here tonight, are going to get what everybody has been waiting for – a personal statement by your very own Arthur Pendragon, concerning the boy in question.

"Now, I've told you all about the work we’ve been doing with Hyperion - but that's not all I do. What all these reporters and researchers apparently did not stumble across, is that I also work closely with the Ygraine Pendragon children's charity. This NPO works closely with fostered and orphaned children - of which I am one, and that is how I met my son."

He shifted on his feet, smiled, and leaned towards the microphone once again. "You can find it under Pendragonfoundation.org. We're always on the lookout for new sponsors and foster parents, so please do check it out."

He offered the audience his cheekiest grin. This was working, he thought, when he earned a smattering of laughter. It was working. He could pull this off.

“So I adopted Merlin. – Yes, that’s a nickname, but one he had before I met him.” He waved a hand. “So you can see how I might have thought we were destined to meet, even if I don’t believe in leaving things to chance, or in the hands of some god or other. I met Merlin and he was the loveliest, most wonderful child, so troubled and so difficult, so different, peculiar and unique. I met him and for the longest time, fostering him didn’t even cross my mind. I just kept going back to see him, because my affection for him sparked at our very first meeting and only grew after that, and then I took him in, and I cared for him through two long and difficult years.

“And if I was only in it for professional success, then, considering the sleepless nights, the fears, the agony…” He pointed a finger at his head. “The grey hairs, even,” he said, mock-outraged, to chuckles from the audience. “I put up with those things because of how much my son means to me. Anyone not doing that sort of thing out of love, somebody running some sort of publicity stunt? They would have given up a long time ago.”

He smiled a little. If the mic wasn’t attached to the speaker board, this was the point where he would have loosened it and begun pacing the stage, but as it was, he could only shift on his feet and grip the sides of the board with both hands.

"Merlin is a wonderful child, an amazing person, and quite honestly the best friend I've ever had. So when people slander that relationship, I'll admit, that hurts. But I'm an adult - I can take it. There are very many people standing to lose huge profits if what I'm trying to achieve is successful, and I should have been prepared for them to resort to low blows, to slander and deceit, to personal attacks not only against me, but against the people most dear to my heart."

He reached up to rub at the back of his head, still smiling a bit. "I want to believe the best of people, I suppose - I don't want to believe my fellow countrymen capable and willing of accosting my nine year old son for nothing but a story."

There was a gratifying murmur of outrage at that.

“But yes,” Arthur said. “That happened. There are websites out there with my son’s photos on them. He doesn’t know about those websites – well, I suppose he does now. But he never consented to that. _I_ never consented. I don’t even know any of those people. Think on that – absolute strangers digging for information about your child, for no reason other than that they don’t like the work you do.”

He hesitated there, swallowed, licked his lips. He gripped the edges of the podium tight while he let his words sink in. Probably not all of them were parents – many of them wouldn’t understand the base panic he’d felt when he’d first seen pictures on a website of Merlin in his uniform, playing on the school ground – somewhere he ought to have been safe and unmolested and yet, somehow, wasn’t.

But a lot of them were, or would be one day, and they understood what he’d been going through. And they would forgive him for what he was about to say.

“So those people claiming I somehow decided to give being a parent a try only so improve my chances at a collaboration with Hyperion Industries – they don’t know how difficult this is for me. They have no idea how close I come sometimes to just giving it all up and taking Merlin away from that. Spirit him away from all those who, however inadvertently, try to do him harm.”

He’d shocked them, he could see that. Good. He set his jaw, determined to get his point across. Because if he could get these people on his side, if he could convince them how much they needed him to fight for them and how close they were coming to losing him, then perhaps they would rise up and take a stand with him. If he was going to fight against all the Marks’ and Brooks’ and Claire’s of the world, he was going to need an army on his side.

He took a deep breath, let his gaze sweep over the hundreds of rapt eyes on him, and said, “Because that _is_ what I’m going to do. I don't want to give up my work, but if that's what I have to do to keep my son safe - then I will. And with every one of us who quits, with every person who abandons the fight, those people out there who care more about their money than they do the very things keeping them alive, they grow stronger. They’re proved right, and they keep going, and they’re going to tear not only theirs, but all of our planet apart.”

The room was quiet. Breathless.

Arthur smiled, just a hint of a smile, private and intimate. Let all of them think he was speaking to them, and them alone.

“So I’m going to ask you all for a favour. Tomorrow, when you’re all safe at home and people ask you how it was, or when you write about this speech in your mags or on your blogs – don’t talk about my son. What I do here, it’s not about him. It’s not for him. It’s not because of him. I do this because it needs to be done, and because conservation and sustainability should be on everyone’s mind right now. What I’m doing right here, right now – we should all be doing it. So go home and spread the word – not about my kid, but about this cause. Be my champions, and we can change the world together.”

Arthur’s speech was followed by silence.

He swallowed, leaning away from the microphone at the very last moment so it wouldn’t broadcast the sound. The spotlight was still on him, the moderator frozen with his notecards clutched loosely in his hands. Nobody asked anymore questions. Nobody clapped.

Awkwardly, he cleared his throat; a noise unfortunately caught by the microphone, echoing back at him from the speakers around the room. He glanced at the moderator, seeking help. The man stood frozen, but when Arthur, with a tint of desperation, said, “I hope that answers your question,” he jumped forward.

“Ah, yes, thank you so much,” he said, but was drowned out by a deafening roar of applause starting at the back of the room and rolling forward like a wave, cresting around Arthur with a volume that was both gratifying and a little scary.

Where before, the silence had been never-ending, now it was the applause that didn’t seem to fade away. Arthur thanked everyone a few times, sketched a brief bow and gratefully let the moderator usher him away from the podium. There wasn’t a backstage area, so he could only loiter around at the edge of the stage while the man unsuccessfully tried to hush the crowd, explaining that they didn’t have time for any further questions. Still, it took a while for the noise to die down, Arthur keeping his head ducked to avoid awkwardly meeting anyone’s eyes, and he had to admit to an unflattering amount of relief when, eventually, a first trickle of people headed for the exit.

He crouched down at the front of the stage to shake a few hands and take a few cards. A group of what he assumed were freshers from Oxford wearing tree-hugger t-shirts and bandanas came to tell him all about an environmental group they were starting, and beamed when Arthur wished them luck with their future endeavours. Then there were some more suits, and a couple of invitations, and Arthur was used to a handful of people wanting to chat for a bit after one of his lectures but here, the throngs didn’t seem to want to end. He tried to smile and be as polite as he could, but his mind still wandered off to Merlin and Gwen waiting for him at the back of the room. To his _family_ , and he hoped he’d never live to see the day when the word didn’t give him a pleasant jolt in his stomach.

Finally, the hall had mostly cleared, but Arthur was still caught in conversation with someone in a similar position as his, who’d flown in from Israel, and didn’t notice Merlin approaching until footsteps thudded across the wooden stage behind him.

“Arthur!” the kid cried, and threw his arms around his neck. “That was awesome, you’re gonna save the world, you are!”

“Not if you strangle me first,” Arthur groaned, clawing good-naturedly at the boy’s arms cutting off his breathing. “Good lord, child, I need to breathe.”

“Strangle you _with my love_ ,” Merlin whispered in his ear, which was so ridiculous Arthur just had to laugh and, grinning, he turned to lean his forehead against the boy’s.

Ironically, that was the picture the papers chose to use. Not one of his charts and graphs, not even one of the tearjerker pictures of polar bears on solitary sheets of ice, or one of Handsome Arthur Pendragon in the middle of his passionate speech to save the planet.

No, it was a picture of Arthur after his speech, down by the side of the stage. It was a picture of Merlin flinging his arms around Arthur’s neck from behind, face blurred enough to be safe to use; Arthur’s expression caught halfway between a frown and a laugh. There was a slide with informative links visible still in the background and a couple of silhouetted heads at the front, turning towards them, like Arthur and his son were at the very centre of the universe.

Arthur wasn’t one for sentimentality, or even newspapers – too many pointlessly wasted trees – but he still stuck that one up on the noticeboard in the kitchen.

The autumn sun had turned Hampstead Heath a glittering gold, leaves glowing yellow and shimmering with light reflected in the left-over dampness of a recent shower. Arthur turned his face towards the sunrays filtering through the trees, mobile held firmly to his ear.

“I’ll see you soon,” he told Gwen, who laughed.

Down the slope a little, Merlin, Gwaine, Geraint and Galahad were slip-sliding across the wet grass, laughing and cursing as they chased after their football. Gwaine, uncharacteristically chivalrous, was holding back, but even so the uncoordinated fumbling of three little boys was no threat to his poorly guarded goal.

“ _Let’s hope so_ ,” Gwen said, voice soft and warm in his ear, disrupted a moment later by his phone chirping out the alert for an incoming text.

“ _I’m ready for this day to be over. See you in a bit, then?_ ”

“Definitely,” Arthur said. He waited a moment before pulling the phone away from his ear. After a moment, the screen lit up to show that his call with Guinevere had ended, and once that notification faded, there was an unread text from Mithian clamouring for his attention.

_It’s been cleared. Congratulations, Dad._

Arthur felt the smile spread across his face, broad and unstoppable. For a moment, he couldn’t move, staring at the screen in frozen disbelief. Then Merlin’s high-pitched laughter pulled him from his stupor, and he slipped the phone into his pocket and jogged down the hill to join Gwaine and the boys.

“Over here,” he called, receiving a pass from Geraint a moment later, but he was too excited, too giddy, and sent it wide.

Gwaine scrambled after it with a dark look.

Merlin, though, sweet, athletically challenged Merlin didn’t care one ounce about Arthur’s uncharacteristically bad playing. He pounced on him the moment he was in range, and Arthur, laughing, let him scale his back and cling to his neck the way he had in Oxford. He wasn’t usually a fan of being nearly choked, but for once he found he didn’t really mind.

“Is she coming?” the kid asked, far too loud given his proximity to Arthur’s ear.

“Yes, she’s coming,” Arthur said, grinning still. “There was a delay on the Piccadilly line, but she’ll be twenty minutes, tops.”

“Awesome.” Merlin slid off of him, about to bound after the ball again, when Arthur caught him around the middle and held him close.

“You and me against these guys, what do you say?” he asked. He met a returning Gwaine’s raised eyebrow with a smirk. “We can take ‘em, right?”

“Okay!” Merlin wriggled out of his arms and ran to clumsily pick up the ball.

“To me,” Arthur reminded him when he just stood holding it for a moment, looking lost.

He rolled his eyes fondly when Merlin dropped the ball at his own feet a moment later. The boy gave it a little kick, and then a stronger one when Geraint ran at him. He dodged Gwaine’s leisurely attack, too, before he managed a pass aimed vaguely in Arthur’s direction.

Arthur had to put in a burst of speed to get to the ball before Gwaine did, but he managed, tearing down their tiny playing field.

“Go, Arthur!” Merlin yelled after him.

His heart felt like it might burst in his chest. Two trees were their make-shift goal posts; and Arthur, grinning, kicked the ball sideways to score. For a moment, he was sure he’d missed. Then the ball curved, suddenly, like it had hit an invisible wall or more likely a hole in the ground, hitting one of the tree trunks instead and bouncing gently past their goal line.

Amidst the good-natured grumbling and groaning from Elena’s boys, Arthur turned to grin at Merlin. He offered his hand up for a high five and then dragged the kid close with an arm around his neck. Merlin grinned back at him, hair mussed and eyes shining, and for a brief moment, Arthur could have sworn he saw in them a flash of gold.


End file.
